To my American neighbour: Peace, hope and progress

As a teenager, my opinion of the USA was shaped by three bullets and one stranger.

Scottie Bradford, my university roommate, born in the US and completing his education in Canada, helped shine a more positive light on his country.

While decorating the walls of the small room we shared he noticed a poster I’d drawn in high school and wanted to hang it over his desk.

It bore the profiles of three men I admired - John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy - and the dates of their assassinations, and it expressed some of the anger I felt toward a country that, in my opinion, glamorized guns.

In March, 1969, Scott and I hitch-hiked to New York City and were between rides outside of Albany, NY, when a passing car slowed nearby. The driver rolled down his window and shouted directly at me (likely because of my longish hair, beard and wire-rimmed glasses):

“F--- off you hippy f--got.”

Instinctively I flipped him a finger and said, “Up yours, war monger.”


[Hamilton, Bermuda: photo by Scott Bradford]

One week later, after flying from NYC to Bermuda, Scott took the above photo while I stood, in a much better mood, on the main street of its capital city.

I flashed my American friend the peace sign. (Look closely, under a microscope - it’s there).

Today it’s for all my American neighbours, including the guy who, like me, is 40 years older and, hopefully, a good deal wiser.

Peace.

***

There’s still a bit of the old hippy in me.

Today I found myself singing a few words from “Abraham, Martin and John,” a song by Marvin Gaye:

Has anyone here seen my old friend Abraham (... John, Martin, Bobby)?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
Oh, he freed a lot of people
but it seems the good die young.
I just looked around and he was gone.

.