A recent trip back to California, where I spent the middle half of my life (the part between the Seattle bookends) and other smaller events have made me reflective of past events and places. My brothers and I stopped in Santa Cruz, briefly, where I had lived for years, and stopped by a nightclub I had spent time in, the Catalyst, and asked the bartender the current status of local things. I found out Club Zayante in the Santa Cruz Mountain had closed. When I got home I researched the Club, which was once of the hottest nightclubs in Central California to learn what happened. I found out the club had closed for financial reasons then burned down. But what I learned about the owner, Tom Louagie intrigued me. He had come out from the east coast on a romantic quest, to find the Cannery Row he had read in Steinbeck. He had the idea of moving there and living a literary dream from the past. He didn't know that that Cannery Row had died...
This song was written by a guy I was later privileged to know, John Handcox, who wrote it for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, for which he was briefly and organizer. I knew John when I was an organizer in San Diego Lee Hays learned it from him at a labor school in Arkansas. I'm putting this here for the workers in Wisconsin to encourage them to roll right over Gov Walker. Here are John's lyrics to which I have added a verse.
ReplyDeleteWe’re gonna roll, we’re gonna roll
We’re gonna roll this union on
We’re gonna roll, we’re gonna roll,
We’re gonna roll this union on
And if the growers get in the way, we’re gonna roll right over them
We’re gonna roll right over them, we’re gonna roll right over them
And if the growers get in the way, we’re gonna roll right over them
We’re gonna roll this union on
Chorus
And if the cops get in the way, we’re gonna roll right over them
We’re gonna roll right over them, we’re gonna roll right over them
And if the cops get in the way, we’re gonna roll right over them
We’re gonna roll this union on
Chorus
And if Gov. Walker gets in the way, we're gonna to roll right over him
We're gonna roll right over him, we're gonna roll right over him
And if Gov. Walker gets in the way, we're gonna roll right over him
We're gonna roll this union on