Photo credit: C. Finch
by Paul Bernstein
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Paul Bernstein is a retired political activist and editor who lives in Ann Arbor and now devotes his spare time to assisting his godson in Florida with his business projects, occasional lunches/dinners with old and new local friends, extensive correspondence, trying to play the piano, and enjoying his music and book collections. This poem goes back to his long-ago days as a student, SDS radical, weekend hippie and music addict in 1960s Ann Arbor. The band featured in the poem was The Prime Movers blues band.
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This is an original poem, brought to you by Poet Tree Town, an Ann Arbor-based poetry-in-public initiative and celebration of local Washtenaw poets. Find out more about Poet Tree Town on Instagram and Facebook, or say hello at [email protected].
Sorry to come to this space so late. Paul died in December and many of his friends did not know until very recently. Here is a short reminiscence of Paul.
Paul was a bubbly voiced intellectual who wrote both poetry and prose, loved Commander Cody and the blues and was active in Voice-SDS. He participated in some of the earliest large scale Anti-Vietnam War protests. When SDS split in Ann Arbor before the national split in 1969, Paul was a leader in the founding of the Up Against the Wall Street Journal which organized students in Ann Arbor to support the auto workers in the Detroit area. We worked together until 1971 in Ann Arbor and later in the International Socialists and the Revolutionary Socialist League in NYC.
Working with Paul on the Street Journal and going to concerts and the Blues Festivals was a constant source of joy for me. We listened to music in my living room on Prospect St. in AA. Those days were magical and Paul was one of my favorite people. I am deeply saddened by his passing especially because we re- united our friendship in New York and saw each other once or twice a year, sometimes talking for a couple of hours on the way home from Riverdale after visiting Wayne. He remembered our days in Ann Arbor as though 1968 were yesterday. What a pleasure!
Those memories will always live with me. Paul kept them alive.