Bob Blue
By Sarah Pirtle, for Sing Out Magazine

Bob Blue, 57; former teacher wrote songs, essays, stories
By Bryan Marquard, Globe Staff | March 30, 2006

REVIEW OF ONCE UPON A MATTRESS, presented by the MIT Musical Theatre Guild. August 29, 1981 by David Shaw

ONE TEACHER'S LABOR OF LOVE,  Boston Globe,  April 11, 1999

MUSIC AND COURAGE, Boston Globe, April 11, 1999

PLAYFULNESS, COURAGE, AND LUCK:  An Interview with Bob Blue Conducted by Phil Hoose    Pass It On! Issue #38 Spring 2001

TRUE BLUE, MUSICIANS COME TO PAY HOMAGE TO BOB BLUE, WHOSE INSIGHTFUL SONGS WARM HEARTS   Daily Hampshire Gazette, January 31, 2002

FRIEND OF EDUCATION HONOR FOR Daily Hampshire Gazette  November 15, 2002

NOTES FROM THE HUNDRED ACRE WOOD Daily Hampshire Gazette  May 9, 2001

VIDEO, CONCERT HONOR BOB BLUE ... Amherst Bulletin  10/23/1998

Hampshire Life Published: 08/11/95 Category: Profile

WHILE BATTLING MS, HE VOLUNTEERS, WRITE...Daily Hampshire Gazette 08/23/95

BLUE, A SCHOOL VOLUNTEER, IS A ... Amherst Bulletin  11/22/2002

Bob Blue, 57; former teacher wrote songs, essays, stories
By Bryan Marquard, Globe Staff | March 30, 2006

Songs, stories, essays, poems -- Bob Blue moved among them effortlessly, even as illness slowly curtailed his mobility.

''He knew that was the part of himself that would live on, no matter what," said a daughter, Lara Shepard-Blue. ''He wanted people to draw inspiration from and to think about what he had to say, and they have. Hundreds of people who for years have been spreading his music will continue to do so. He would like that."

Mr. Blue, who wrote more than 200 songs and penned thousands of essays and stories, had taught elementary school in Wellesley for 20 years. He died at home of complications from multiple sclerosis on March 17 in Amherst, where he had moved in the 1990s when he was no longer able to teach full time.

With characteristic humor, Mr. Blue, who was 57, glibly dismissed his illness in a 1999 interview with The Boston Globe.

''I want to go on the record as being against it," he said of multiple sclerosis, a degenerative nerve and muscle disease.

Much of Mr. Blue's musical work, which he recorded, was aimed at children and ranged from musicals and tunes about something as simple as a spring day to songs about more serious issues, such as disappointment, divorce, or his own illness.

As a writer, he published collections of essays in four volumes of ''Parents, Teachers, Children: Thoughts from Someone Who's Been All Three . . . and Remembers." He wrote about his experiences with MS in ''After Humpty Dumpty's Fall," and most recently completed ''Tales from Blueville," a series of stories in verse inspired by Theodor Geisel's Dr. Seuss books.

Mr. Blue grew up on Long Island in Huntington, N.Y. He graduated from Beloit College in Wisconsin, taught high school briefly in that state, and took a job teaching elementary school in Wellesley in the early 1970s. A gifted pianist who could pick out a tune after hearing it once, Mr. Blue wove music into his daily lessons.

''He taught a lot with songs -- he taught grammar and math," said Phil Hoose of Portland, Maine, with whom Mr. Blue and several others founded the Children's Music Network, which grew into a national organization. ''He was so inventive and so well-attuned to how a song could trigger learning in a person."

He set some lyrics to the music of others. ''Their Way," which pokes fun of conformity, was modeled on Frank Sinatra's rendition of ''My Way." That song was performed by other musicians on ''A Prairie Home Companion." Another composition, ''The Ballad of Erica Levine," was performed by Peter, Paul, and Mary.

''He would get an inspiration and start writing the lyrics, and by the time he was done writing the lyrics, he would find that a tune had already written itself," said his daughter, who lives in Amherst. ''And sometimes the tunes were actually Mozart or Scott Joplin. He borrowed some tunes, too."

The first symptoms of multiple sclerosis began to appear in 1978, when Mr. Blue was 30. Though he had a progressive case, he worked another 15 years before taking a disability pension and moving to Amherst.

''He wrote a lot about what it was like for him to come to terms with the different stages he went through," his daughter said.

Some observations ended up in a column he wrote for the Wellesley Townsman.

In Amherst, he stayed involved as an educator and adopted a first-grade class at Fort River Elementary School that he intended to follow through high school. That class graduates this spring. ''He had an unusual way of connecting with kids who were having a hard time, and was very talented at writing songs from a child's point of view," said Anne Louise White, a music teacher at Fort River.

Mr. Blue, she said, also used his sense of humor to show children that someone with a disability need not be shut away: ''He would bring in a new wheelchair and show how he could tip back and do a wheelie."

Ben Goldberg, a friend from Florence who is a musician and carpenter, helped Mr. Blue modify his Amherst condo as he used first a cane, then a scooter, then a wheelchair to get around. ''I slowly discovered what an incredibly wide and diverse and marvelous world he lived in, and how he was able to approach his life with such courage and humility, modesty and fearlessness," Goldberg said.

Mr. Blue, who was married and divorced twice, turned his living room into a performance venue where musicians would play.

''When he couldn't perform anymore, he listened to music," his daughter said. ''He felt so blessed."

And he kept writing -- at all hours. When he could no longer type with both hands, he would tap out an essay with a single finger. When that wasn't possible, he'd dictate to his healthcare assistant.
''He had a real compelling need to write," his daughter said. ''He had to have a computer available 24 hours a day in case he woke up in the middle of the night with a thought he needed to get down."

Ann B. Morse, who met Mr. Blue in college, was sitting outside her home in Nashville earlier this week, singing ''This Kind of Day" -- a song of his that extolled the beauty of spring.

''Somebody said that Bob is no longer among us, but he's with us, and he's with us through his songs," she said.

In addition to his daughter Lara, Mr. Blue leaves another daughter, Katy, Rogers of Crestview, Fla.; his mother, Sylvia, of Binghamton, N.Y.; two brothers, Howard of Queens, N.Y., and Richard of Clearwater, Fla.; and a sister, Susan, of Binghamton.

A memorial service will be held May 7. The place and time will be posted on Mr. Blue's website, www.bobblue.org.

(back)

Conducted by Phil Hoose

From Pass It On! Issue #38 (Spring 2001)

Bob Blue has been near the heart of CMN, and many of its members, for many years. As a parent, teacher, activist, songwriter, and performer, he has long used music to make life more fun and meaningful for children—and for himself. Though the “progressive” effects of multiple sclerosis have made it impossible for him to perform his music anymore, an award-winning video documentary (What Matters, by Shoshana Hoose and Ann B. Morse), several recordings, and a host of performances by top-flight musicians are steadily moving Bob's work into a national spotlight. He is widely admired for a distinctive ability to craft songs that make universal, often ethical, statements through small, personal episodes. In one song, “Courage,” for example, a schoolgirl's hesitation to invite an unpopular classmate to a party is likened to the courage historically required of citizens to stand up to brutal regimes.

For 24 years Bob was a classroom teacher. He formed loving and respectful relationships with most students, but the sailing was not always so smooth with administrators. He was strongly encouraged to leave his first four jobs before hitting his stride as a teacher of second- and third-grade students in New York and Massachusetts. There was always a piano in Mr. Blue's classroom (“It would have been like teaching without a chalkboard for some”). During the school year he made up songs to help his students explore all sorts of things, from spelling rules to how they dealt with their feelings. In the summers Bob wrote them musicals, arranging scripts so that as many children as wanted to could play the lead. Though he retired from teaching in 1994, he still loves the classroom, and volunteers 3 to 5 days a week in the Amherst, Massachusetts, public schools.
                                               

Bob was present at CMN's organizing meeting, in Hartford, Connecticut. A year or so later, when 12 women announced that they were ready to form CMN's first board of directors, Bob turned to a friend and said, “Well, it isn't only women who work with children is it?” and volunteered to serve. Later he also became the editor of Pass it On! Though traveling has become increasingly exhausting, Bob still sometimes manages to attend CMN gatherings. Upon arrival he is surrounded by children who want a scooter ride. Once settled delicately onto his lap, a child looks back and asks Bob if (s)he can drive. Usually, he nods. Away they lurch, sometimes with an adult sprinting in pursuit and an open-mouthed crowd watching through fingers.

Several of Bob's songs have become classics. “The Ballad of Erica Levine” has been performed by Peter, Paul and Mary, among many others. “Their Way,” a satisfying treatment of academic bullying, was sung on “A Prairie Home Companion.” Last year, “My Landlord” was one of six winners of The Great American Song Contest, sponsored by Songwriter's Resource Network. In the same contest his Halloween song, “I'm Not Scared,” received an honorable mention award.

Bob Blue, 53, lives in a small home in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he is frequently in the company of one or more of his five personal-care attendants, his many friends, and, sometimes, by his daughters Katie and Lara.

This conversation took place throughout the winter of 2001. In grand CMN tradition, it is a quilt of 11 e-mail segments and a telephone conversation.

PIO!: You're in all sorts of families, but tell us about the one you grew up with.

Bob: I grew up in Huntington, New York, with my parents and brothers Howie and Richie. We lived in a suburban housing development, but we had just enough wooded land to make us think we were out in the country. Our development was called Audubon Woods, because it had been built on what was once a bird sanctuary. My mother gave us a rotating schedule of chores—things like feeding and walking Chipper (our dog), cutting the lawn, raking leaves, weeding the garden, feeding the animals and collecting eggs.

PIO!: What animals were there besides Chipper?

Bob: We had ponies, a lamb, a goat, and 21 chickens. My father bought the ponies so we could earn our way through college by selling rides or renting out the ponies for birthday parties. Howie rented out the ponies a lot, and brought some of them to fairs and other gatherings. I preferred driving a pony and cart into a neighborhood, shouting out “Pony rides!” and gathering children to buy rides at 25 cents a ride. I wore a cowboy hat, a cowboy-looking shirt, and cowboy boots. I spoke with what I thought was a Western drawl. I fancied that I was more popular than the ice cream man.

PIO!: So was your dad a farmer?

Bob: I think my father wanted to be a farmer, a history professor, or something else, but instead he owned three clothing stores: Blue's Boys' Shop, Blue's Boys' and Men's Department Store, and Rick's Roost. The first two were in Richmond Hill, New York, and Rick's Roost was in Huntington. I didn't spend much time in any of the stores. I was allergic to formaldehyde—which I think was used to make permanent-press clothes—and besides, I didn't like clothes. I still don't, but I realize that they're helpful. But the stores were a big part of my childhood. Partly because all my clothes were chosen for me, but mostly because it made me not have my father at home much.

PIO!: You must know a million songs. Did someone sing to you a lot when you were little?

Bob: My mother tells me that when I was born, she immediately sang a Yiddish lullaby: “Shayn Videelah Vunah.” She sang a lot as I was growing up. She told me her favorite songs were “Cheek to Cheek,” “The Isle of Capri,” and “It's June in January.” And I learned to play them on the piano. She requested them a lot.

PIO!: When did you start playing piano?

Bob: I was three. Actually, I was playing the organ of our next door neighbor, Mrs. Gural. My mother walked by their house and heard someone playing the organ. She asked Mrs. Gural, “Who is that?” She answered, “That's your son, Bobby.” So they got me a piano. She encouraged me to practice, too. I liked playing piano; I loved it. But I did not like taking lessons—practicing Clementi sonatinas or scales. So as I practiced, she listened, probably as impatient as I was. The piano was in the living room, right near the kitchen, and when I drifted from practicing to playing my favorites (and hers) by ear, she'd say, “Bob-by—” with a mock-disciplinary tone of voice. But I don't think she really wanted me to go back to playing scales.

PIO!: What are some of the earliest songs you remember?

Bob: “My Little Gray Pony,” the camp song of the Pineview Camp (my grandfather's camp in Loch Sheldrake, New York), “A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” “No Two People Have Ever Been So In Love” (Danny Kaye), “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” (Doris Day), and “When Santa Claus Gets Your Letter” (Gene Autry). I listened to records a lot—Broadway Musicals, mostly. My parents never took us to musicals; they bought original cast recordings: Burton, Andrews. and Goulet in Camelot; Robert Preston in Music Man; Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady; Theodore Bikel and Mary Martin in The Sound of Music; Richard Kiley in Man of La Mancha. I listened to the soundtracks a lot. I was crazy about Danny Kaye. And I loved the people who made little 78-rpm records for kids—Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, Gene Autry, Burl Ives, and later, Walt Disney Productions.

PIO!: When did you start writing songs?

Bob: This is embarrassing. The first song I wrote was called “The Great Society.” It was a satire on Lyndon Johnson's Great Society idea, but it was written from the point of view of a Young American for Freedom who wanted Barry Goldwater to be president.

PIO!: Were you for Goldwater? I know all sorts of people who were fired up by Barry Goldwater. Most of them became lefties.

Bob: Well—I was an adolescent. I had the feeling something was very wrong with our government. Then I read a book called “Conscience of a Conservative,” by Barry Goldwater. It seemed so logical and right to me! Besides (and maybe more to the point), my parents were shocked! What better endorsement? I could work for what I thought was “power to the people” and against my parents, at the same time! For about a year, I was a young conservative.

PIO!: There's a part in the video you where you say you knew you wanted to be a second-grade teacher in second grade. That really amazed me—what a precocious sense of vocation. Why'd you want to be a teacher? Why not an astronaut?

Bob: It's true. I had a second-grade teacher named Mrs. Keedle. I loved her, and for about a year, I wanted to be a second-grade teacher. But if Mrs. Keedle had been a banker, I probably would have wanted to be a banker. Anyway I soon realized that my destiny was to be a doctor. That's what my father hoped, and I dutifully hoped so, too. I thought it would be my way to help people. But I later learned that science was important for doctors, and I didn't like science. And in seventh-grade biology we dissected frogs. Being allergic to formaldehyde, I couldn't do that. So I gave up on being a doctor.

PIO!: Looking back, how would you describe the 15-year-old high-school student, Bobby Blue?

Bob: I spent lots of time alone in the woods, wishing I were someone else. I thought I was unpopular, and I tried to believe it was because I was “smart” and into music. There were lots of other kids who felt unpopular, and we often hung out together, not realizing that we had the power to redefine “popular” so that the word would include us. It wasn't until my senior year, when I was the lead in the senior play, Annie, Get Your Gun, that I started to feel popular. Songwriting didn't help because I didn't write my second song, “TV Child,” until 1972.

PIO!: There are plenty of other service professions that don't use formaldehyde. Why did you finally return to teaching?

Bob: In college I decided that I wanted to be a teacher, partly because I really did, and partly because my wife was going to have a baby, and I heard that teachers earned some money.

PIO!: So did you turn out to be a natural teacher?

Bob: Hardly. I got a job at Turner High School, in Beloit, Wisconsin. I taught 12th-grade English. I was 21, and many of the kids I taught were taller and tougher than I was. Many things set them off laughing and giggling. Every time I used the word come, the kids would start giggling. One kid named Dan decided to put the liberal college-educated hippie (me) in his place. He did no classwork or homework. I gave him an F, but that didn't stop him from graduating; the principal changed it to a D, to get rid of him. Dan is about to be 50, if he's still alive.

PIO!: What do you think the chances are he'll read this and get back in touch?

Bob: Not good. Two years later I started teaching elementary school. I loved it, but classroom management still did not come easily. My classroom was a zoo—a real zoo. I had no idea how to establish order, let alone maintain it. When I said, “May I have your attention, please?” and they wouldn't give it to me, I was crushed! Do I have to be authoritarian? I wondered. Then one day a volunteer came into my zoo to get the children to go to gym class. And she said, “Would you all please line up here?” and I saw all the different creatures in my zoo line up in a straight, single-file line. I was humiliated. I could never get them to do that, and all she had to do was say those few words.

PIO!: So what did you learn from that episode?

Bob: The lesson at that time was: I just don't have it; she does, I don't. I give up. I want to be as good as her someday. I was extremely discouraged.

PIO!: What made it get better?

Bob: I guess I got older and I learned a few tricks. One was, “Put your hand up if the person next to you is paying attention,” and, “Now put your hand down if you are also paying attention.” After awhile it got so I could just say, “Could I have your attention please?” They knew that if they paid attention I might do some interesting stuff, or I might give them some interesting stuff to do. They're more likely to pay attention if something good is about to happen.

PIO!: What grades did you teach?

Bob: Every one but sixth, but mostly second and third graders. They were a perfect match for me. They were too old for the stuff that I didn't want to teach them. They already knew when to use the bathroom, and that people are not for biting. They could tie their shoes. And they were too young to learn some other stuff I didn't want to teach, like calculus and sex education. They loved to sing. My first year teaching second grade I was on the piano one day and they were singing “High Hopes,” and I really liked the sound of children singing. So I said to myself, Why don't you write a song? It was almost Halloween, and they were all asking each other, “Are you scared about Halloween?” and answering, “I'm not scared.” So I wrote them a song called “I'm Not Scared.” They liked it, and they learned it really fast. They performed it for their school, and a few other teachers learned it. By the time my daughter was old enough to sing it, she thought it was a standard. Years later, as an adult, she said, “You wrote that?” I said, “Yeah.” “You couldn't have written it,” she said, “I learned it in school.”

PIO!: How important to your students was the chance to perform the songs they had learned?

Bob: Children love performing. I wrote several plays for children, too. Sometimes a child says, “I don't want to perform. I don't want to be in front of other people.” And I say, “Okay, you don't have to.” Then they watch the rest of the class being in front of people and later they say, “Can I do it, too?” And I say, “Sure, but I thought you didn't want to.” And they say, “Well, it looks like fun.” The children who performed in those plays were dear to me. I can't imagine thinking anything could have been better than having Emily Ball play the good witch of the north, or having Abigail Joseph play Alice, in Alice in Wonderland.

PIO!: So Abigail was one-sixteenth of the Alices?

Bob: Yeah, I guess you know that story. When we did Alice in Wonderland, I asked who wanted to play Alice, and 16 children raised their hands. So I scripted it so that each one got a chance. If figured if 16 kids want to play Alice, then 16 kids will play Alice—or Dorothy, Winnie the Pooh, Charlotte, or whoever. Lots of kids want to be stars. I did, didn't you? And for one scene, at least, every child who wanted to be Alice got to be a star. Some people say that is pandering to egos. Maybe it is, but egos get crushed enough.

PIO!: You seem to have used music a lot as a teaching tool, even though you weren't a music teacher. Why?

Bob: Music is a powerful way to learn. Some children who have a lot of trouble learning in other ways can do it through music. And children who learn well in other ways nevertheless love learning through music, or just making music. We should help teachers feel more comfortable using music in their classrooms. We support teachers who have other difficulties. No elementary-school classroom teacher could get away with not including reading or math in the curriculum. You don't hear a teacher say, “I'm just not a reader,” or, “I don't do math,” but so far, “I'm not musical” is acceptable in our culture. If a teacher decides to take lessons or something, that's considered extracurricular, and there's no time or money donated by the school system. It's like an impossible dream, and if King George W. gets his tax cut, it'll be even impossibler.

PIO!: How did you get from Barry Goldwater to “Erica Levine?” Here we get to see a girl develop a sense of independence during several encounters with boys and men in her early life. We're there for her first kiss, with her at the prom, meet a couple of guys who try and fail to possess her, and finally overhear her calmly discussing the terms of her upcoming marriage with Lou, someone she loves. Why'd you write this song? Was there a real Erica Levine?

Bob: I wrote it for the wedding of two friends—Bob McCorkle and Meri Cayem. It was very autobiographical—all about my personal growth in relating to women. When I first taught second grade, there was a girl in my class named Diana McKearney. I wanted to use her name but it didn't fit the meter, so I used her sister's name, Erica. And shortly after that I met a girl named Jessica Levine. They were both spunky kids and Erica Levine was based partly on them, partly on lots of wise women I've known, including my ex-wife Sandy. Incidentally, a teacher at Fort River went to a folk concert and the performer's name was Jessica Levine. I asked her to try to find out whether it was the same Jessica Levine I'm referring to. If so, her parents were Joan and Jim. Sure enough, it was the same Jessica. I found out her address and mailed her a tape. We'll see what comes of that.

PIO!: The first time I ever saw you, at a People's Music Network gathering in the mid-1980s, you were singing with a band. I think it was The Nice Jewish Boys.

Bob: Yup. In 1982 I wanted to perform my song, “You Can't Grow a Beard If You Shave.” It was my attempt to do a country song, and I thought it would be neat to have a fiddler, a banjo player, and all. I happened to know them. They were Matthew Weiss (who later died in a car crash), Sandy Pliskin, Russell Aminzade, and Aram Hollman. They were all nice, all Jewish, and all male, although technically we were men, not boys. We had a lot of fun. When we were done performing that song, I thought we'd break up, but we stayed together for a few years. Matthew thought we should call ourselves “The Kosher Nostra,” Russell thought we should be “The Boys of the Lox,” but we stuck with “The Nice Jewish Boys.” Our motto was, “Musical Chicken Soup for Sick Times.” We broke up in 1985, because my second wife thought I should stay home more. Some of the “boys” referred to her as our Yoko Ono.

PIO!: Did you ever really go for a career as a performer?

Bob: I never aspired to a career as a performer, but I would have loved having audiences all over wish I would be one. Anonymity is fun if enough people know about it. Actually, now that I can't sing or play instruments, it seems as if people wish I would!

PIO!: Which brings us to MS, the reason you can't sing or play anymore. When did you first know you had it?

Bob: I was diagnosed with “some demyelinating disease—possibly MS” in February of 1978. I spent about eight years without symptoms. In 1986, I started having trouble walking long distances, and by 1994, I had to retire; I didn't have the energy to teach.

PIO!: I often wonder what it's like for you to experience MS, and I really don't know how to ask. Is there anything you'd like to say about it?

Bob: I was once interviewed by a reporter for the Boston Globe. He asked, “Could you make a comment about your MS?” and I said, “I want to go on record as being opposed to it.” . . . Well, let's see. It's something that I have to keep learning to live with, because every time I learn to live with some stuff, I get more stuff. Like first I had to get used to the idea of walking with a cane. And so I did. It was fun for awhile having a cane. Once in the hall in school a parent was trying to reach a hat high up on a shelf, and I speared it with my cane. But my last year of teaching I started using a wheelchair that I had found in the trash. I did a little work on it, and it sort of worked. Kids enjoyed rolling me around in the school. Then I got an electric scooter, and then I found I couldn't walk without one except for a few steps and then the few steps went away, and so on. I love joking about it. People think, “Wow, he's brave, he can joke about it,” but they don't know I have to joke about it. Am I supposed to be depressed about it? I don't want to.

PIO!: So you've really chosen not to be depressed about this . . .

Bob: Well, it's not really a choice. It's the way my life has gone. When people are depressed, it's not because they've said, “Oh, I think I'll be depressed.” I was depressed for awhile, but not about MS. I find that with each passing year I can do less and less, but I can do it better than ever. By the end of my life I'll be able to do nothing perfectly. I have to keep making adjustments—in my diet, my lifestyle, my medications, and my home, as MS “progresses.” It was important for me to have my own house, so that I can have a live-in PCA (personal-care assistant) when I need one—actually, when I admit that I need one. Right now I have five PCAs, and I hire more as insurance allows me to. So far, I've been very lucky (Catharine Haver, Wendy Robinson, Amy Mohr, Reuven Goldstein, and Kathy Spence, I hope you're reading this). And friends and relatives have helped me a lot, too. And when I started to be unable to mail tapes, books, and videos, Catharine Haver volunteered to do it. She thinks my stuff should reach more people, and she works hard to make it happen.

PIO!: MS has eliminated piano, reduced singing, and made songwriting much slower. And yet you're still Bob Blue, a fundamentally creative person. What are your creative outlets now?

Bob: I compose on the computer, with one finger. I write parodies, and sometimes I collaborate. Mostly, I write prose. In November of 1994 I started writing articles about teaching and children for the Wellesley Townsman newspaper. So far I've written 1,034. I distribute the articles on the internet. (PIO! readers can contact me if they'd like to be on my distribution list.) Since I can't travel to concerts much any more, I now have concerts travel to me. In December of 1999 I started a monthly concert series in my living room, called “Stone Soup.” I can seat about 25 people. It's very cozy, but cool in the summer. Performers volunteer, and we pass a cup around for them.* It's friendly and homey. I'm booked until December of 2002. It's just another way I'm lucky.

PIO!: You have a CD of your children's songs coming out, right?

Bob: There will actually be two CDs—one intended for children and one for adults. They will be available when they're done—probably May. My friends Catharine Haver, Joanne (Olshansky) Hammil, Verne McArthur, Anne White, Eric Kilburn, and many more have helped make it.

PIO!: One of your songs that I really admire is “Courage.” It discusses the moral responsibility of nations and individuals through the story of one young person who struggles to decide whether to invite an unpopular classmate to a party. How'd you come up with the idea?

Bob: The mother of one of my former students proudly told me the story. Her daughter was invited to some big social event and her unpopular friend wasn't. Risking ridicule, she invited her friend. At the time she was in fourth grade, and her teacher had been using the curriculum, “Facing History and Ourselves.” I'd also recently read While Six Million Died, by Arthur D. Morse. It all came together into a song.

PIO!: I understand you've changed the ending a bit.

Bob: I changed a line “no one cried out in shame” (referring to the My Lai Massacre and the Holocaust) because many people did cry out, and their courage should not go unsung.

PIO!: You've been part of CMN from the very start. How'd you find out about it?

Bob: Sarah Pirtle and Ruth Pelham told me about it at a People's Music Network gathering in the mid 1980s. They said that a bunch of people were going to get together and start a network about children's music. I liked the idea right away. I was isolated. I was thinking, “I'm such a strange guy: I like to make music with children, and I don't think it's mere entertainment, or a distraction for them. I think that it helps me teach. It's an educational thing to do.” I could sense that people thought about me, “He's neat, he sings with the children. He doesn't really teach them anything, but at least they have fun with him. He really oughta be a music teacher.” Or, “Why doesn't he quit his day job and go entertain at birthday parties?” I thought I was weird to think of music as a tool for teaching. A lot of other people were thinking that way too, but I didn't know it. It felt so liberating to have a network of people who felt the same way.

PIO!: Were you still growing and learning as a teacher when you had to retire?

Bob: Yeah! [laughs]. For the first 24 years I had a reputation for being really fun and a nice guy. Finally in my last year I started to get a reputation for knowing what I was doing. I was learning a lot about how to deal with parents. I sent a newsletter home every Friday, telling what had happened in class during the week and telling what I planned to do next week. Parents really appreciated it. Before the newsletter I had been calling up parents and talking with them about what was going on. But I'm much better at explaining things in writing than talking. Even when I used to be able to talk, I was better in writing.

PIO!: Are you still in contact with many of your former students?

Bob: Some of the kids I've taught do e-mail me—Rachel Libon and Kat (formerly Katie) Geha in particular. They make me proud. They're doing important work and/or will. And shortly after I retired in 1994, I “adopted” about 80 children at Fort River School in Amherst, when they were in first grade. I quickly got very attached to them, and when they were ready for second grade, so was I. And so on. I've stayed with them ever since. Now they're in seventh grade. And so am I. I visit the middle school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the elementary school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I play a role I haven't seen anyone play before. Once in awhile someone says to me, “What do you do in school?” My standard answer is, “Could I get back to you on that?” I do what kids, parents, and teachers ask me to do (within reason). And I do what I think ought to be done. It fills my life.

PIO!: What's it been like for you to work with middle-school students, after all those years with younger children?

Bob: It was hard at first. Some of the kids stay close to me, but to many, I am a reminder that they were recently children—and they don't want to be reminded. I am about 40 years older than “my” seventh graders, but being with them brings back many memories, and the memories help a lot.

PIO!: You have such a great way of respecting children and being honest with them.

Bob: I think they know I respect and love them. And I remember what it was like to grow up. It's really hard to be a child. The world is not set up to let children have power, to let them be heard. People say, “Children are so cute,” and they write them off. Or they say, “We gotta whip these children into shape, or they'll have no self-discipline.” Not enough people are looking at children as human beings. Children are not “future human beings,” but already human beings with things to say.

Phil Hoose is a writer, conservationist, musician, father, and utterly proud-long-time CMN member. He lives in Portland, Maine.

Boston Globe Archives

ONE TEACHER'S LABOR OF LOVE
Author(s): Eric Goldscheider, Globe Correspondent Date: April 11, 1999 Page: G5 Section:
Learning

AMHERST -- Uncharacteristically, Bob Blue got depressed when he finally landed a permanent elementary school teaching job. His fear was that he might like it. After all, the job was in the rich Boston suburb of Wellesley and Blue's ideal was to "teach the children of poverty." That was in 1974. His fear turned into reality. He loved his job, and, over the course of 20 years, children, parents, and colleagues grew to love him.

It is hard to put Blue's career into a neat box. Until he took a disability pension due to advancing multiple sclerosis he made his living as a school teacher. He also became a fairly well-known songwriter and helped found the Children's Music Network, which has grown into a national organization that promotes music for young people and, in his words, "has become a pretty important force advocating for children. His retirement at age 45 did not mark a letting go of a career he loved but a regrouping of his energies and the beginning of a new phase in his life as a teacher. He "adopted" a first-grade class in his new hometown of Amherst in 1994. He has gone to work almost every day as a volunteer since then, following that group of children through the grades. When they graduate from high school in 2006, he'll go back to first grade and start all over. He also writes a column on teaching and parentingfor the weekly Wellesley Townsman and co-edits the Children's Music Network newsletter, Pass It On.

If there is a thread connecting everything Blue does, it is that he is a cheerful, artful, and dogged advocate for children.

He can't play the piano or sing at a performance standard anymore but today at 2 p.m. some of his many friends will perform his songs at Wellesley High School. Also on the bill is the Boston-area premier of a video documentary called "What Matters: The Music and Teaching of Bob Blue."

Blue was raised in Long Island, N.Y. His father had changed his name from Blustein when he got married. Blue went off to college in Beloit, ("the name sounds like someone dropping a nickel in the toilet," he says) Wis., where he was interested in international relations and was almost drawn into Russian Studies. His then wife became pregnant and he figured a few education classes wouldn't be a bad idea from a practical point of view.

He graduated in 1969 and was on his way to his first teaching job, in a Wisconsin high school, when he got the idea for his first song. Frank Sinatra was delivering his rendition of "My Way" on the radio and "right away it seemed another story needed to be told," recalls Blue. He wrote a parody called "Their Way," which manages to rhyme "full professor" with "cruel oppressor" and the title of the song with "the doctrinaire way." In it, he lampoons higher education and conformists in one tidy package.


The song went into his drawer, but many years later it was the vehicle through which one of his three musical dreams was realized when it was performed on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" radio program. It also became the title song for one of Blue's two albums.


His first elementary school teaching job was in Acton where he lasted one year. "They wisely asked me to leave," said Blue, because, he admits, he didn't know how to handle a classroom of children. He went to Monroe, N.Y., where he clashed with a conservative principal who had the habit of publicly tearing up student work during penmanship class. "I think they would have been wise to keep me," he says, but it didn't work out that way. He sent out a hundred resumes, including to the Fort River Elementary School in Amherst, where he now volunteers, but met with little success. The job in Wellesley became his because of some insider information. His wife's cousin, who taught there, was pregnant, and Blue knew, before most of the rest of the world, that she was about to quit.


A book by a pedagogical hero, Jonathon Kozol, called "Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools," published in 1967, inspired him to join the teaching profession. His sights were set on making a difference in the lives of poor children. "I started apologizing for teaching in Wellesley, because I was teaching the kids of the upper classes," he said. When songwriter friend Ruth Pelham pointed out that "kids are kids," Blue said his outlook changed. He lived in Waltham and came to appreciate the "Volvo, Saab, and Dodge Caravan liberals," whose children were his pupils.


He integrated music and singing into his classroom but came to realize that he was performing too much and not teaching enough. Eventually, he was able to get "kudos in a more appropriate setting," he said, by performing in clubs and with a band called the Nice Jewish Boys. Another musical dream came true in 1985, when he performed at Club Passim in Cambridge.

His third song was "The Ballad of Erica Levine" written for some friends' wedding. It is a coming-of-age story of a young woman who fends off suitors until she is ready for an emotionally healthy marriage. Blue wrote it around the time of his divorce, when he was reflecting on how he related to women and was working on "getting things right."

His third musical dream was to have a song of his sung by Peter, Paul & Mary and "The Ballad of Erica Levine" fulfilled that ambition. But, were it not for a fortuitous lull at a contra dance in Boston when the master of ceremonies asked for a volunteer to sing, Blue's career might have looked very different. He sang "Erica Levine." In the audience was folk singer Kim Wallach who asked to put the song into her repertoire where it gained fame. "She also talked to me about my song writing and called me a songwriter," Blue said. "I said I'm not a songwriter, I just wrote a song. And she said, that's what songwriters do." He has written 190 songs since then.

The first signs of multiple sclerosis appeared in 1978, but, for a long time, they remained mild enough for Blue to pretty much ignore them.

During the years he taught in Wellesley, Blue helped found the Children's Music Network. The group, he said, is dedicated to "using music to get children more aware of diversity, alternatives to violence, the need for justice, respect for the planet, and all that good stuff. . . . You should also put in `gender equity' or I'll get into trouble."

Since its inception in the late 1980s the Network has grown to a membership of 500 performers, teachers, parents, and children in eight US regions.

When multiple sclerosis finally became such a drain on Blue's energy that he could no longer teach he
decided to retire either to Ithaca, N.Y., or Amherst, two communities for which he has great affection. Amherst wash chosen in part because "it is horizontal," and, as Blue was starting to depend more and more on an electric scooter to get around, that was an important consideration.

For the first week after he moved, he said he would awake and say, "Gee, I don't have to teach today." Then he realized that teaching is what he wanted to do. He went to help out in a first-grade class because that is where principal Russell Vernon-Jones said he could be of most use. When the school year ended, he realized that he had fallen in love with the students. One of the advantages of not being on the payroll was that he could decide where to put his efforts the next year. "Now I don't have to say goodbye" when the school year ends, he said.

The relationship between Blue and the 75 fifth-graders in the Fort River Elementary School extends beyond the school day. He visits their families and has been known to carry on e-mail correspondences with children who come to him with concerns. He has a system called "the person of the month" in which he calls someone every night to let them know that he is OK. Usually, it is a parent from one of his classes.

E-mail also has played a roll in another of Blue's passions: writing. His 300-word columns appear weekly in the Wellesley Townsman, but he writes them at a pace of one each day. There are 793 of them so far, with an unpublished backlog of more than 560. If Blue were to stop producing them today, they would still run until the year 2009.

Grist for his column includes observations from his vantage point as an experienced teacher migrating up the grades with a group of students. It also comes from the many questions he receives about childhood issues.

Speaking at length is getting harder for him ("I'm taking speech therapy so don't be overawed if I enunciate perfectly," he says), so his responses are usually typed with one hand ("I used to type 60 words a minute, now I type 30," he says.). Those responses often turn into columns.

He also accepts the hand fate has dealt him with equanimity. "Each year I can do less and less, but I do it better and better By the end of my life I'll be able to do nothing perfectly," he said.

His experiences in the Amherst school have taught him many lessons. "I've learned to respect the kind of teacher I used to secretly condemn," said Blue. "There are lots of good ways of teaching and my way is only one of them."

Today's concert at Wellesley High School is sure to be a tribute to Blue's accomplishments so far. Friends, colleagues, and admirers will be there to sing and listen to his songs. Testimonials will no doubt abound.

Gathered around a table recently, seven of the fifth-graders he now teaches had their own comments on
Blue's role in their lives.

"He doesn't make you feel stupid if you get the wrong answer," said one.

Another said, "It's nice to have him around, because when you have problems you can talk to him and he'll make you feel better."

A few other students added: "He makes every day less boring with his sense of humor," and "Most people think that Bob is not a teacher, he's a friend," and "He taught me my 9-times table." All of them picked up on the fact that he walked with a cane when he joined their class four and half years ago. Now, except for the occasional few steps he'll take to fulfill his end of the bargain when a pupil meets a challenge, he gets around with his electric scooter.

Being the media-savvy youth that they are, this group of fifth-graders realized that whoever made the nicest comment was likely to get his or her name in the newspaper. Blue beamed and egged them on.

So, in the spirit of Bob Blue, who once wrote eight Alices into an adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland" so that 16 girls could play the part in the course of two performances, the names of Blue's latest admirers are, in alphabetical order: Conor Burke, Lena Doung, Josh Gonzalez, Andrew Hollingworth, Mike Korza, Chelsea Murphy, and last, but by no means least, Hilary Piech.

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MUSIC AND COURAGE
Author(s): Richard Higgins, Globe Staff Date: April 11, 1999 Page: 2 Section: West Weekly

People in Wellesley remember Bob Blue as an elementary teacher with unusual gifts, primarily the songwriting and musical talents he used to teach subjects such as math and grammar. At 2 p.m. today at Wellesley High School, those gifts and another of Blue's -- courage -- will be celebrated at a documentary film premiere and concert in his honor.

Blue, 50, a former resident of Wellesley and Newton, and founder of the Children's Music Network, taught second and third grades at Wellesley's Hunnewell and Schofield elementary schools for 20 years. He developed multiple sclerosis, a degenerative nerve and muscle disease, in his 40s, and was forced to retire in 1994. Blue has moved to Amherst and continues to write songs and work with children. As a part-time volunteer teacher, Blue "adopted" a kindergarten class in Amherst in 1994 and has followed the children up through the grades, working with them in school nearly every day.

The documentary, "What Matters," explores how Blue used music and humor in his classroom both to teach subjects and social justice, as well as to build a sense of community, one of its producers, Ann Morse of Arlington, said last week.

In the documentary, Blue talks about his inspirational philosophy and his struggle to come to terms with his disability. The film has another local connection in that it is narrated by 11-year-old Cate Levin of Newton, who also sings a song Blue wrote, "Courage," with Roslindale artist Dean Stevens on the guitar.

"Teachers and parents can learn much from this gentle man about working with children and about facing adversity," Morse said.

The 45-minute video in the Wellesley High School Audiorium, which includes an interview with Pete Seeger, will be followed by a concert, whose performers will include Stevens, Martha Leader of Brookline and Joanne Hammill of Watertown.

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TRUE BLUE, MUSICIANS COME TO PAY HOMAGE TO BOB BLUE, WHOSE INSIGHTFUL SONGS WARM HEARTS   01/31/2002
Daily Hampshire Gazette
Published: 01/31/2002 Page: D1

Bob Blue of Amherst will celebrate the release of a new CD of his songs at a concert Sunday. True Blue, Musicians come to pay homage to Bob Blue, whose insightful songs warm hearts
Byline: JOHN STIFLER


THE problem with politically correct songs is not that they're politically correct. It's that, often, they're boring.

I'm a reasonably touchy-feely guy and I like profound human values, the struggle for honest relationships, the goals of peace, justice and understanding. I also am well aware that plenty of politically incorrect songs are incredibly boring too.

But it's worse when the goal is just and the songs are full of trite phrases, predictable rhymes and colorless lyrics.

Fortunately there's relief in the person, and the songs, of Bob Blue. Blue, who lives in Amherst, is celebrating the release of a new CD of his topical songs in an extraordinary concert this Sunday at the Amherst Unitarian Society. One extraordinary thing about it is that Blue has written song after song that is particular, idiosyncratic, smart and funny.

Another extraordinary thing is that the show features a who's who of performers taking turns singing Blue's tunes. Best known locally are Sarah Pirtle and Paul Kaplan, but there'll also be nationally renowned folksinger Sally Rogers, plus Kim Wallach, Jackson Gilman, Joanne Hammil, Anne Louis
White, Dean Stevens, Sandy Pliskin and Verne McArthur.

And Blue himself. Which is extraordinary too. Bob Blue, 53 years old, suffers from multiple sclerosis, and his long-splendid musical talents are now mostly in his ear rather than in his voice or in the hands that used to play the piano nimbly. But he'll be there, lip-synching to recordings of his own voice, as part of the show.

If this is sounding too warm and fuzzy for your sophisticated taste, you should be aware that Bob Blue resembles Tom Lehrer at least as much as he resembles Raffi. Think of a Lehrer with a G rating, deliciously satirical and insightful, verbally playful. Also like Lehrer, or Shel Silverstein or Kipling or Aesop, he is a master of writing words that tickle adults while edifying children, and vice versa.

"When I was a teenager I listened to songs by Tom Lehrer," Blue said last Friday, "and I thought, 'I could do that,' and I started trying. I wrote junky stuff. But when I was 31 I tried again. All of a sudden I felt like I was a songwriter." First playing a neighbor's organ at the age of 3, then taking piano lessons in elementary school, he became a fluent musician, his compositional skills whetted by listening to Broadway music.

The first Blue song I heard may be the first you heard, too, at least if you're an old hippie who went to concerts by Bright Morning Star. It's "Their Way," a skewering-the-establishment sendup of "My Way," the Paul Anka song made famous by Frank Sinatra.

"I came, bought all the books, / lived in the dorms, followed directions," it begins, then progressing through an ironic series of capitulations to academic authority, until the narrator becomes a full professor. "Where once I was oppressed, / I have become the cruel oppressor." Rich stuff.

Of the 35 songs on the CD, half a dozen are takeoffs on other writers' material, often reverentially so. "A Little Night Words" consists of Blue's lyrics about how Mozart didn't write lyrics to "A Little Night Music."

"While I'm Here," his answer to Phil Ochs' poignant activist song "When I'm Gone," is a subtle indictment of illogical, inefficient health care and other social lunacies.

Other songs seem to spring more purely from experience _ the author's own experience, experiences of friends, and experiences of children. Voices of real children pop up repeatedly in Blue's material. For example, in "Dear Mr. President" a third-grader describes an altercation with a classmate: "My mouth was full of blood / His nose was bleeding too. / We had to talk about it, 'stead of having gym. / We should of gone to gym. / The talk was really dumb _."

With an uncanny ear for real speech, Blue pulls off moments like this over and over. And no wonder: He has spent more than two decades in elementary schools. "I was a high school English teacher," said Blue, "but then I threw in the towel and said, 'I want to teach kids who want to learn.' So I taught second grade. They were excited, and they got me excited."

Blue's excitement gently permeates everything: how to distinguish between loving someone and possessing that person; how to think globally and act locally by inviting the girl no one likes to the party; how a caterpillar spent too much time thinking about becoming a butterfly; why the abortion
question is terribly complicated. There's usually a moral, but it taps a listener on the shoulder rather than banging him or her on the head.

Listening to Blue talk is a lot like listening to his songs. "I was telling one of my personal care attendants about the Valley Light Opera," he continued. "I said, 'My neurologist plays the oboe in the
orchestra.' The PCA said, 'Really? Plays the oboe?' I said, 'Sure. A neurologist can play the oboe. (pause) I didn't say he played the bassoon. That's an instrument for a podiatrist.' "

Raised on Long Island, graduating from Beloit College in Wisconsin, Blue spent much of his professional life in Waltham and Wellesley before moving to Amherst in 1994. "Living in Amherst even for a little while," he said, "I fell in love with the place. It's the only place I ever saw a double
rainbow. It has ethnic diversity without pollution. And it's the disabled capital of the world!"

Blue's disability, evident over the phone in his slowed speech, is no fun at all, yet he seems incapable of feeling sorry for himself. "Every songwriter is supposed to write a depressing, desperate self-pitying song," he quips in the introduction to one track on the disc. "This (song) is the best I could do. All right so I'm not depressed. In fact I envy myself."

Officially retired, Blue is still busy in schools, volunteering as a classroom assistant and observer at Fort River School and the Amherst middle school. "I remember the problems I had when I was a teacher, some things teachers can't talk about and sure wish they could. I can talk about those things now. I don't have to worry about getting fired, or getting my pay cut. And the principal appreciates having me there."

If he'd never written a song in his life, Blue would be an important writer just because of the series of short essays he has written based on his observations of how school children behave, and why, and what happens next.

A few minutes' conversation with him is a delightful, uplifting experience. So Sunday's concert should be transcendent. And lively, and very funny. It starts at 7 p.m. The Unitarian Society is on North Pleasant Street by Kellogg Avenue. Proceeds will benefit the Stavros Center for Independent Living. Admission is by a suggested donation of $5.

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FRIEND OF EDUCATION HONOR FOR BLUE
Daily Hampshire Gazette
Category: News
Published: 11/15/2002
Page: B3

Friend of Education honor for Blue
Byline: PHYLLIS LEHRER

AMHERST _ Robert Blue will receive the Friend of Education Award from the Amherst Pelham Education Association for his volunteer efforts, including eight years of service at the Fort River Elementary School. The award will be presented at a reception Monday at 3:45 p.m. in the Amherst Regional High School library and is free and open to the public. Blue, who lives in Amherst, is the 18th recipient of the award, which has been presented to volunteers, educators, legislators, local groups, such as the Hitchcock Center for the Environment and A Better Chance. Ronald Bell, assistant superintendent, received the award last year.

Blue, 54, retired from teaching in 1994. He has multiple sclerosis and said it was making it difficult for him to manage a classroom.

"He's the go-to guy when people need help. He's done everything, he's
tutored kids, read stories, worked on sixth-grade productions with the music teacher," said Peter Gervickas, Fort River Elementary School assistant principal.

"The library staff hold him in high regard. He checks curriculum with teachers and passes on the information to art, music and phys ed staff so they can coordinate. Besides helping, he always thinking of others, the unsung heroes. He's very kind and loves children," said Tim Sheehan, AAEA president.

Blue, 54, was cited for his connection with a particular class following them each year beginning in first grade and now as eighth-graders at the Regional Middle School. Blue, who is a musician and songwriter, still comes to Fort River once a week, according to Sheehan, a second-grade teacher at
Fort River.

Phyllis Lehrer can be reached at plehrer@gazettenet.com

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NOTES FROM THE HUNDRED ACRE WOOD... 05/09/2001
Daily Hampshire Gazette
Category: Feature
Published: 05/09/2001
Page: C1

Caption: Photo cutlines
JERREY ROBERTS
Songwriter Bob Blue of Amherst watches members of the West Cummington Congregational Church rehearse the musical he adapted from A.A. Milne's "House at Pooh Corner." Blue, a teacher who was forced to give up his job seven years ago due to multiple sclerosis, now volunteers his time working with children at the Fort River School in Amherst. He has adapted a half dozen musicals from favorites of children's literature.
JERREY ROBERTS

In some cases entire families were involved in the Pooh production. Above, John Bye as Eeyore practices his lines with his son, Taylor, who played Christopher Robin. Bye's wife, Peg Cowen, and daughter, Naomi, also had parts.
JERREY ROBERTS

Because there was a large demand for parts, parishioners shared roles. Above
are three Piglets, from left, Naomi Bye, Dory Selman and Willow Westwood.

Notes from the Hundred Acre Wood

, Members of a close-knit church in West Cummington discover a musical dream

team: Pooh and Bob Blue, an irrepressible songwriter from Amherst whose
heart beats for his many young friends

Byline: LARRY PARNASS
I SHOULD HATE HIM
TO GO ON BEING SAD.
_ Piglet

"JOYS and Concerns" is the name given the few minutes each Sunday when members of a small church in West Cummington can speak up. They don't need permission to do so, considering this congregation's closeness, but "Joys and Concerns" is part of the weekly service, its name a built-in reminder that the little piece of good news worth passing on to friends could be entered in the ledger as a bit of joy.

A few months ago, when winter was bearing down on the old wooden walls of the West Cummington Congregational Church, Connie Talbot told a story about a chance encounter with a lost acquaintance at a supermarket in Hadley. The joy was just seeing this man, Bob Blue, who was her son Matthew's
second-grade teacher once upon a time in Wellesley. Matthew is now 23. Blue had helped Matthew back then, Talbot said, at a hard time in her family's life. "We had a long chat. It was awesome seeing him."

Talbot told the congregation that Blue, who is 52, no longer taught. He retired in 1994, the year he moved to Amherst, when the multiple sclerosis he was diagnosed with in 1978 had advanced to the point where he was no longer able to manage a classroom.

Having expressed her joy to members of the church, Talbot decided to build on it. She suggested the congregation of 50 revive a musical play, "The House at Pooh Corner," that Blue created with children during his final year teaching in Wellesley.

It was one of a half dozen musicals that Blue, a musician and songwriter, had adapted from favorites of children's literature.

Talbot wanted to offer a free staged reading of the play to the whole community _ for the fun of it, and as a tribute to Blue. "By the time church was over that day, everybody was into it," she said. It would be the first community production for "The House at Pooh Corner." Two dozen people, half the membership of the church, agreed to participate.

They set a performance date on the first weekend in May, giving them several months to learn its songs. For church members, it was to be a playful voyage of self-discovery _ and a simple celebration of the community contained both in A.A. Milne's classic and in their church and town.

" 'The House at Pooh Corner' is a perfect mirror for the way a community ought to be," said Penny Schultz, a church member who teaches music at the Hilltown Cooperative Charter School. Schultz leapt at the idea of producing the play. As a music educator, she knew Blue's work _ and knew that despite his advancing paralysis, which had cost him use of his right leg and right arm, he continued to volunteer nearly every day in a classroom in Amherst.

For nearly seven years, in fact, he has been an unpaid aide in a single class, starting when its members were first-graders at the Fort River School. Though he moved to Amherst when MS forced him into retirement, Blue says he wasn't of a mind to stop doing what made him happy _ working with children.

Last Saturday afternoon, Blue drove his motorized chair to the rear of the intimate hall in Cummington's Community House, this village's town hall. Up on stage, two dozen church members read and sang a play about the joys and concerns of eight remarkable stuffed animals _ and one little boy _ to a packed house.

I shouldn't be surprised if it hailed a good deal tomorrow. Blizzards and whatnot. Being fine today doesn't mean anything. It has no significance. It's just a small piece of weather.
_ Eeyore

Up at the church months ago, with cold winds spitting, the prospective cast began working the songs. While the elements of the play are drawn from Milne's stories, the music is Blue's. Schultz, the parishioners' musical maestro, had once been to a concert sponsored by the Children's Music
Network, a national group Blue helped create that promotes music education. "I was really enchanted by some of them," she said of Blue's songs. "In my opinion, he's a brilliant songwriter. Some are breathtaking in their depth of the feeling."

Schultz led church members through the eight songs in the play, from Pooh's
lament about cold toes in "The More It Snows," to Piglet's admissions about
his insecurities in "When Someone Is Strange" (in which he sings, "But I
have to admit that I'm nervous when someone is strange.").
Because they could field far more people than the play required, members
shared the roles. The production loaded up with Poohs (four), but drew only
one owl. Three men agreed to be the gloomy Eeyore and the role of Kanga was
taken not just by two female members of the church, but dedicated, in the
program, to "Women Everywhere."
Outside, snow kept falling, on a church in a village that's tucked into
folds of hills kept dark on winter days.
Coming to church to sing of characters in Milne's fabled Hundred Acre Wood,
the name of the region Christopher Robin prowls with his friends, helped
ease the season's burden. "This has been like a spring tonic in our church
community," said member Mary Hale. "Some of us said, 'Oh, in this endless
winter, it was a touch of light.' "
As one of the Eeyores, it fell to John Bye to sing an early song, a mournful
number, "To Have An Address," about Eeyore's lack of one. His household
supplied a Pooh (his wife, Peg Cowen), a Piglet (daughter Naomi) and a
Christopher Robin (son Taylor).

It's all very well for jumping animals like kangas, but it's quite different
for swimming animals like tiggers.
_ Tigger

Blue believes Milne's stories reframe life's dilemmas, from the point of
view of those roaming the Hundred Acre Wood. "The old questions sound new
again," he said. "Everybody is confused and children are more open about
being confused. Adults pretend they think they know. 'The House at Pooh
Corner' makes clear that not knowing is OK."
"Most people identify with one or more of the characters. I have a friend
who really likes Eeyore and thought like Eeyore. I myself am more of a
Tigger sort of a guy. Tigger enjoys life so much that he sometimes bothers
people who don't enjoy it quite as much. He's trying to learn to chill out a
little bit. But it's so much fun to bounce, that he bounces."
He's seen a lot of bouncing. It's safe to say a person has to appreciate
bouncing to teach elementary school for 25 years, then volunteer in
classrooms for seven.
When Blue moved to Amherst in 1994, after leaving teaching in Wellesley, he
started spending 20 hours a week in a Fort River School classroom. It dawned
on him at the end of his first year volunteering that he didn't have to say
goodbye to the students. "When June rolled around in '94, I realized that
they're going on to second grade, and thought, 'I'll do it too.' Now they're
in seventh grade and I'm still with them."
Blue says it hurt when the disease took his ability to play guitar and
piano. "I am now a better listener than I used to be. I still talk a lot and
even sing once in a while, but don't sound as good as I used to.
"Gradually, I'm deteriorating. And unless they cure it, which doesn't seem
likely, I'll probably die when I'm about 100." He waits a second for the
humor of that to take effect. "But I was going to do that anyway."

I'm not going to do nothing any more.
_ Christopher Robin

Blue came up to watch the troupe's second and final rehearsal last
Wednesday, the first to be held at the Community House. The play would be
performed here in three days. It was a warm day and he had a straw hat at
his side.
Onstage, Schultz was pounding out tunes on a piano in what she called an
"English music-hall style." It captured the mood of Tigger's bouncing. As a
chorus neared, she called out to everyone onstage, "All right, take it
away!"
As she prepared to cue one of the Tiggers, Brooke Lynes, Schultz embellished
on the score to pump the mood. Lynes warned, "If you jazz it up too much, I
might lose it."
Down front, Connie Talbot and Alma Owen, the stage manager, offered
reinforcement for the cast by laughing. With two dozen people crowded onto
the stage, Owen didn't ask for much more than getting people seen. "It's
more like traffic control than directing," Owen said. "It's like a football
game."
After getting through the piece, people clapped for each other. Schultz
called out, "Yay, Bob" and cast members looked to the rear of the hall and
gave Blue hearty applause.
That just might have been enough right there, Schultz said later that night.
Everyone would have gone home happy. "The performance is really incidental,"
she said. "But it gets Bob's work out to people, which is important."
Blue moved his scooter close to the stage. He told the cast he'd been
pleased with what they'd done, and couldn't be shaken from that. "Where did
we screw up?" a woman asked.
"I'm sorry, you didn't screw up," Blue told the group, trying to speak above
the hoarse whisper his illness creates. "I know a great director tells you
one thing you can do better." He left that thing purposely vague. "You can
do better," he said.

Well, what I like best in the whole world is me and Piglet going to see you,
and you saying, 'What about a little something?' and me saying, 'Well, I
shouldn't mind a little something, should you, Piglet?' and it being a hummy
sort of day outside, and birds singing.
_ Pooh to Christopher Robin

The play offered a little something that could be taken many ways, depending
on age and inclination. "It's simple but deep at the same time," said Peg
Cowen. "It's got great meaning."
It contains lessons about getting along. It offers cautionary tales about
personalities run amok. Though it plays peacefully, Rabbit does plot
Tigger's banishment for all that bouncing. While they are thoroughly
themselves, from the fumbling Piglet to the devious Rabbit, the animals also
operate happily under the loose rules of civil society.
"It's just a reading of a play, but a lot of people were pulled in," said
David Bartley, who played one of two Rabbits. "A few people said, 'Yes, you
really are Rabbit.' ... I am. I'm so Rabbit."
Because personality shines through in the roles, that's one of the things
that had people talking, as the performance neared.
Stephen Philbrick, the church's minister, says he enjoyed watching the
pieces come together. "They're all trying to get in touch with their inner
Kanga," he said. "People are going around analyzing each other this way. ...
If you knew these people, you'd see that this casting was done with perfect
pitch."

Thank you Piglet. What you have said will be a great help to us, and because
of it, we could call this place Poohandpiglet Corner, if Pooh Corner didn't
sound better, which it does, being smaller and more like a corner.
_ Pooh

Since few people in Cummington knew of Blue's work in music, it's fair to
say, as some have, that the prospect of seeing adults wearing funny ears
helped fill the Community House hall at 5 p.m. last Saturday. The children
perhaps didn't know they'd get to see adults in compromising positions, but
it helped keep them watching.
Performers were still arriving a half hour before show time. Some audience
members were seated out front as Schultz worked with the two players in the
final scene, Colin Harrington as Pooh and Taylor Bye as Christopher Robin,
about how to punctuate the last line, since the play ends quietly.
"In a way, it's Christopher Robin saying goodbye to the idea that his
stuffed animals can talk," Blue said in his whisper, from his seat in back.
"It's a poignant and sad moment."
As the play began, a warm breeze drifted in through the bank of windows to
the west. From the stage, cast members were waving and blowing kisses. Two
clusters of children sat in the aisle, their shoulders relaxed and rounded.
Talbot introduced the audience to Blue. "The music is so fun and so wise and
so much in the spirit of our little church," she said.
The lines came quickly, in their deliberately sing-songy style. As the Poohs
and Piglets changed, as new Tiggers stepped forward, the audience was asked
to divine what's common in all of them: common sense, basic decency and
community.
As one of three Eeyores, David Lynes used his knitted brow to underline his
gloominess. As Owl, the usually refined Michael Hale paused before
delivering his first line to twist hairs on each side of his head into
owl-like tufts.
Through all 19 scenes, the amateur cast nailed the funny lines, from little
Piglets in pink costumes to the bouncing senior-citizen Tiggers. They sent
Blue's melodies out, resoundingly, to the back wall. They accepted warm
applause and then turned it on Blue, who sat smiling in back, with a fleece
around his shoulders.

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VIDEO, CONCERT HONOR BOB BLUE ... 10/23/1998
Amherst Bulletin
Category: Column
Published: 10/23/1998
Page: 15
Keywords: 10-23 15
Caption: PHOTO CUTLINE
Amherst songwriter Bob Blue is the subject of a documentary to be shown at
the Unitarian Meetinghouse Sunday, followed by a concert of his songs,
featuring over a dozen performers.

Video, concert honor BOB BLUE
Byline: PHYLLIS LEHRER

Bob Blue wrote his first song in 1969 and it was five years before he wrote his second. "After that I couldn't stop," said Blue, who has written 200 songs, recorded two albums, published a songbook and helped found the Children's Music Network, an international organization of teachers, musicians, parents and young people.

His music and story are the subject of a new documentary, "What Matters: The Music and Teaching of Bob Blue," which will be shown Oct. 25 at 2 p.m. at the Unitarian Meetinghouse in Amherst.

A concert of his music follows at 3 p.m., featuring over a dozen performers. The roster includes Sarah Pirtle, Debbi and Joshua Friedlander, Paul Kaplan, Fran Plumer, Emily Cooksy, Will Fudeman, Jackson Gilman, Peter Siegel, Anne Louise White, Phil and Ruby Hoose and more.

Blue said he doesn't have a musical background, though he did have pianolessons and can read music. But his main career has been teaching. He said children inspired many of his works. "So many issues screamed out for a song," he said. "I write about things that concern (children), such as friendship or being different. Most of what I do is about social justice."

One of Blue's songs is about a girl who was invited to a birthday party, while a friend, described as a nerd, wasn't. "She wouldn't go unless the friend came," said Blue. "She had had a class on facing history, which included the Jews' experience with the Holocaust. And she made theconnection _ 'I can't treat my friend that way.' She sang the song on tape,"said Blue.

Blue has written musicals based on children's books such as "Charlotte's Web" and "The House at Pooh Corner." "Kids love musicals," he said."At one level the song is about the story. Another level says things that are important."

About six years ago, Blue was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis "and that did slow me down," he said. He decided to retire after 20 years as an elementary school teacher in Wellesley, and moved to Amherst. Because he still wanted to be involved in education, he "adopted" the first-grade class at Fort River Elementary School. Blue said he helps some children with their academic needs, some with
social. He said he wants to give students confidence, and talks with children who have disabilities.

"School feels like a family to me," he said. "Parents invite me into their homes." Fort River Principal Russell Vernon-Jones said, "Bob is a marvelous volunteer. As a former teacher, he knows how a school operates. He always says, 'How can I help?' When we had an emergency closing, he would answer and make calls or deliver messages. He's a helper who steps in to do whatever is needed."

Blue has stayed with the Fort River class, now in the fifth grade. After they graduate he will go back to the first grade and start again. "Bob's a friendly presence in front of the school," said Vernon-Jones. "He welcomes everyone. He's in a wheelchair and that's a very positive experience for a child _ to relate to the obvious handicap and experience him as a warm human being they have in their lives."

The documentary was produced by Shoshana Hoose of Portland, Maine and Ann Morse, of Arlington. It includes footage of a 1997 Amherst concert, which featured musicians from all over the country, who had come together to showcase Blue's songs.

Hoose had come to the concert to tape it for her husband, who is involved with the children's network. But then several people asked for copies. "I would have to edit the tape, which would be expensive," thought Hoose. "If I had to do that, (I thought) why not interview Bob? And that's how the
documentary was born," she said. The project started 18 months ago and cost about $4,500. The producers received a $3,000 grant, and sales and donations should make up the difference.

"What made the project a treat was I got to know Bob better," said Hoose. "He's beloved by so many people. We got so much help from friends of Bob." One of those friends is Pete Seeger, who is interviewed on the video.

A $3 donation is requested to see the video and hear Sunday's concert, which
is a presentation of the Music for a Sunday Afternoon series.

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Hampshire Life
Published: 08/11/95 Category: Profile

Photo/Graphic: MUG

ROBERT ERIC BLUE

Byline:

When multiple sclerosis forced former Wellesley elementary schoolteacher Bob Blue to retire at age 46, he found it impossible to stay away from his work with children. Last year he moved to Amherst and started volunteering in local classrooms, including the Fort River School in Amherst and the
Leeds Elementary School in Northampton.

According to Blue, his illness has been a mixed blessing. ``I have physical problems, yes, but I still get to teach,'' he said. ``And I don't have to do report cards or stay after school anymore all the things teachers hate to do.''

While Blue helps the teachers out in any way he can, he admits he especially enjoys singing and storytelling. He belongs to the Children's Music Network, an organization of approximately 500 parents, performers, songwriters and radio personalities in the United States and Canada who
communicate through e-mail.

They also publish the magazine Pass It On, which features interviews with performers like Ella Jenkins, Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton and Fred Rogers. In addition, Blue writes a weekly column for the Wellesley Townsman on teaching and parenting issues. He said he hopes one
day to syndicate his columns or turn them into a book.

Full name: Robert Eric Blue
Nickname: Bob
Date of birth: July 31, 1948
Place of birth: New York, N.Y.
Address: Amherst
Job: Retired elementary schoolteacher
Marital status: Single
Children: Katy, 25, and Lara, 24
Educational background: Beloit College, Wisc., B.A. in comparative
literature, 1969; State University of New York at New Paltz, M.S. in
elementary education, 1974
What words come to mind when you look in the mirror? Joy, humor, kindness,
age
Favorite book: The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Book you are currently reading: The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho
Favorite movie: ``When Harry Met Sally''
Favorite television show: ``Mad About You''
Favorite song: ``River,'' by Bill Staines
Favorite musical performer: Claudia Schmidt
Hot topic you couldn't care less about: The O.J. trial
What's the strangest job you've ever held? Construction worker
What your friends say about you behind your back: I hope he's as happy as he
seems
Hobbies: Music, writing
What makes you laugh? Thoughts
Favorite food: Pesto
Least-liked food: Dead cows (steak, etc.)
When you want to get away from it all, where do you go? I'm already away
from it all
Favorite store: Food for Thought
Favorite way to splurge: Eating at a restaurant
Favorite item of clothing you own: A very colorful shirt
Best present you've ever received: A letter from a child
What one moment in your life would you like to do over again? There aren't
any. I like new moments
One little-known fact about you: I'm famous (one song I wrote was performed
on ``Prairie Home Companion,'' and another one was performed by Mary Travers
of Peter, Paul and Mary)
One thing you would never do: Bungee jump
What was your most irrational act? Once I yelled at my class. Well, more
than once
Secret fantasy: Finding a way to cure my MS
One thing you can't resist: Chocolate
Achievement of which you are most proud: Teaching for 26 years
Pet peeve: People who don't listen to children
Favorite way to blow off steam: Listening to classical music
Most valuable lesson you've learned so far: Think before acting
Person you'd give the most to meet: I've met him Pete Seeger
One thing you do better than anyone else: Write songs
One thing you've never been able to do: Enjoy swimming
Greatest fear: Pain
Best advice your mother ever gave you: Think before acting
One thing you would change about yourself: I'd cure MS
People who knew you in high school thought you were: A nerd
Who would you like to trade places with for a day? I wouldn't
Personal strengths: I listen well and write well
Personal weaknesses: I get tired and distracted easily
What would be your perfect evening? I work with children and they may read
this so my perfect evening would be spent reading and talking and singing
with friends
Compiled by Vicki French-Lankarge

Editor's note If you would like to suggest someone for the I.D. column,
call the GazetteLine at 584-3200 and ask for selection 8006.

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WHILE BATTLING MS, HE VOLUNTEERS, WRITE... 08/23/95

Daily Hampshire Gazette
Published: 08/23/95 Category: Feature
Page:
Keywords:
Correction Date:
Correction:
Photo/Graphic: PHOTO

WHILE BATTLING MS, HE VOLUNTEERS, WRITES AND MORE WORK WITH CHILDREN
BRIGHTENS BOB BLUE'S LIFE

Byline: STEVE PFARRER

photo cutline
JERREY ROBERTS
Robert ``Bob'' Blue entertains a group of neighborhood children in his Amherst home Monday. The children are, clockwise from the right, Avalon Simmons, Kaela Dougan, Zephyr Simmons and Piper Murray.

AMHERST _ Multiple sclerosis may have slowed former elementary school teacher Robert ``Bob'' Blue _ but it hasn't stopped him by any means. Indeed, at a time when there's a growing challenge to the assumption that people with physical limitations can't make it in the workaday world,

Blue is a perfect example of a person who refuses to quit: he volunteers in classrooms, writes songs and an educational column, and maintains an upbeat attitude.

He traces his optimism to his longstanding work with children and his move last year from Wellesley to Amherst. Amherst, he says, has just the right balance of rural and urban amenities. ``When you spend time with children, it's hard to forget that life is fun,'' he said in an interview last week. ``And I'm amazed at all the connections I've managed to make since moving to Amherst.''

Blue, 47, taught for some 26 years, the last 20 in Wellesley elementary schools, before he was forced to quit teaching at the end of 1994 because of problems stemming from MS, a degenerative disease of the central nervous system in which tissue hardens in the brain and along the spinal cord.

Looking for a community that provided better accessibility for people with disabilities _ and remembering how much he liked Amherst when he lived here years ago as a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts _ he moved to town last September, taking an apartment in the Colonial Village complex.

As he recalls, his first brush with MS came in 1978, when he thought he was going blind. The symptoms went away in a few weeks, he said, but over the next several years he began to lose energy and developed problems with muscle control and coordination. Today, walking is very difficult, and he can no longer play the piano or type with his right hand. He also struggles to keep his energy level up.
``It was very annoying at first,'' said Blue, who grew up on Long Island, N.Y. ``I suppose if I'd been a baseball or basketball player, it would have been much worse. But I've found ways to compensate'' with the condition.

In fact, he calls MS a ``mixed blessing'' because he now has more time for things like songwriting and his educational column, which he writes for a Wellesley community newspaper. He's recently collected all his columns and is publishing them in a book.

He also found time last year to help teach in Irene Eigner's first-grade class in Amherst's Fort River School, working one-on-one with students and producing a musical with them. Eigner says she was impressed with Blue's commitment and rapport with the students.

``The kids adored him,'' she said. ``He was a great help, and we had a good relationship, good communication.'' Blue, with a laugh, puts it this way: ``I got to spend time with the kids without giving them homework, and I could go home early if I wanted to. That's not a bad deal.''

Blue says he also gets around town just fine in an electric cart, although he can drive if he needs to. And he stays in touch with friends _ and makes new ones all the time _ by getting on the Internet and sending e-mail.

And speaking of friends, he made quite a few of them during his teaching days: when he asked friends and parents of former students for help in raising money for a down payment for a house, he ended up collecting $10,000.

``I've gotten some wonderful support,'' said Blue, who is divorced and has two grown daughters, one of whom visits from her home in Burlington, Vermont. ``I'm very thankful.'' He has an interesting plan for getting a house: Since banks won't give him a good enough mortgage because his annual $20,000 in retirement pay is too low, he proposes to buy a house along with a family that's looking for one but can't afford the down payment. That arrangement ideally would give him some amenities such as a washing machine and dishwasher, while the family could assist him with things like grocery shopping. In return, he'll do some babysitting and tutoring, if needed.

``I call it the grandfather project,'' Blue said with a laugh. ``I see it as a cooperative arrangement in which we'd support one another.''

This year he intends to volunteer in Amherst elementary schools again, and he's at work on a new musical for children, as well as songs he writes as part of a singer/songwriter group that includes local guitarist Paul Kaplan. About the future, he says, ``I'm optimistic _ there's no reason I shouldn't be.''

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BLUE, A SCHOOL VOLUNTEER, IS A ... 11/22/2002
Amherst Bulletin
Category: News
Published: 11/22/2002
Page: 11
Keywords: 11-22 11
Caption: PHOTO CUTLINE
JERREY ROBERTS
Bob Blue shares a smile with Julie Marcus during a reception in his honor
Monday at Amherst Regional High School.

Blue, a school volunteer, is a friend of education
Byline: PHYLLIS LEHRER
School volunteer Robert "Bob" Blue doesn't like vacations and long weekends because it keeps him away from working with students and being with people, according to Fort River teacher Trish Farrington.
"Bob is sensitive, kind and caring. All the people's lives he touched are richer for knowing Bob," said Barbara Rothenberg, former Fort River teacher. For the past eight years Blue has volunteered at the Fort River Elementary School and for the past two years at the Regional Middle School, continuing
to work with the students he met when they were first-graders. That dedication and devotion earned Blue the Friend of Education Award from the Amherst-Pelham Education Association Monday.

"We give the award to someone who goes above and beyond the call of duty to Amherst schools and
students. He assists with the school musicals and curriculum units and reaches out to students and staff in countless ways," said Tim Sheehan, AAEA president.
Sheehan said Blue told him he wants to volunteer until 2048 when he turns
100. "We're going to hold you to that," said Sheehan, who teaches second
grade at Fort River.
Sheehan said Blue has written more than 1,000 essays about his educational
observations, many of which have been printed in the Wellesley Townsman.
Blue received the award, a golden apple, at a reception at the Amherst
Regional High School library with 50 teachers, students and staff present,
several of whom spoke. Blue, who lives in Amherst, is the 18th recipient of
the award, which has been presented to volunteers, educators, legislators,
local groups such as the Hitchcock Center for the Environment and the ABC (A
Better Chance), and students. Ronald Bell, assistant superintendent,
received the award last year.
"He was a friend. To everyone he was just somebody you picked to talk to,"
said Amherst Regional High School freshman Nick Nestelbaum, 14, who added
that he had to attend this important event honoring Blue.
Blue, 54, is a musician and songwriter, and his music provided a background
as well as a sing-along of "If I Only Had A Break" to the Wizard of Oz tune
led by Farrington.
"His talent was clear when we read his music. Everyone had so much fun with
his music," Nestelbaum said.
In an earlier conversation, Blue said he continues to volunteer because he
wants to be involved. "I love children. That's my motivation," he said.
Blue retired from teaching in 1994 and moved to Amherst. He has multiple
sclerosis and it was difficult for him to manage a classroom. Blue taught in
elementary school for 23 years and in high school for two years.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1981 THE TECH PAGE 7

Once Upon A Mattress
Off to a Cushy Start with the Musical Theatre Guild

Once Upon A Mattress, presented by the MIT Musical Theatre Guild. August 29. 1981

The Princess and the Pea: Once upon a time, on a stormy night, a princess arrived at the door of a castle... Everyone knows the story. it's been told for years. The real story, however, has remained a well-kept secret. A certain minstrel was a guest at the aforementioned castle, and he got the inside scoop

It is on this premise that Once Upon A Mattress is based. The authors take great advantage of the flimsy construct and pack the story with crazy characters: a mute, skirt-chasing king, his shrewish wife, a daunted prince, an ex-vaudeville wizard, and more. Add a generous number of wellpenned tunes and a fast-paced script resulting in light enjoyable entertainment.

Light, enjoyable entertainment - the perfect summer production, which the Musical Theatre Guild carried off perfectly. The guild seems to have better luck with small-cast plays, probably because they can focus more on the acting and ease up on the technical aspects. All with good results; I have never heard better singing or seen better dancing in any other MTG show.

The acting was also on par with any professional production, or particular note was Bob Shepard-Blue's performance as King Sextimus the Silent; he managed to create a vivid, realistic character without uttering a line of dialogue. Jane Graham was a suitably aggravating Agravaine (also a bit loud), but she seemed to work best when played opposite her henpecked son, Prince Dauntless. Jim Mahoney found the perfect balance of naivete and manic energy that was necessary for the Dauntless part.

Rather than single out all of the performers, it could be best to say that all of the acting was well above par. The flaws with the show lay more with the staging and music. Quite a few lighting cues were missed; another technical run-through should iron out the difficulties. I don't know if another run-though (or two) will help the band. At times they sounded in danger of drowning out the actors, problems that were most in evidence during the song "Sensitivity." However, this did not detract from the overall quality of the show. This will be the last weekend to really enjoy yourself before things get awful (once again). so go and get a few laughs- see the show before it's too late.

David Shaw