Category: activist, resistance, speaking out

Archibald the Mystical Mouse

I’ve been thinking since March 5th of 2026, when I published my book, that I should rewrite it — not because I expect sales to suddenly skyrocket, but because I left out some things, explanations that would have mattered. Like the fact that I have this mystical mouse named Archibald MacLeish who shows up in the beginning. I just assumed everyone would sort of get it, and then it started occurring to me, over and over again, that no, not everyone does get it. What’s the big deal about the mouse?

So let me say it plainly.

In my book, I talk about this make‑believe mouse named Archibald MacLeish. He’s a small, mystical presence who slips in and out of the story, but the name itself comes from something real in my life. Back in school, my science teacher kept a classroom mouse, and he named that little creature Archibald MacLeish. At the time, I didn’t know much about the man behind the name, but my teacher did — and he believed in giving things names that meant something.

Later, I learned who the real Archibald MacLeish was — an American poet who wrote about democracy as something you do, not something you admire from a distance. He believed in dissent, in thinking for yourself, in the dignity of choosing your own path.

So the mouse in my book is that mouse — the one supporting my dissent. Not just the classroom mouse, and not just the poet, but the whole chain of belief behind it: a teacher who saw something in me, a poet who stood for freedom of thought, and a reminder that even the smallest presence can carry a big idea.

That’s the namesake. That’s the reason. That’s why the mouse is Archibald MacLeish. That’s why he shows up at the induction center.

And I should have explained that as an introduction to the little guy — why he’s there and given him the honor and the dues he deserved. I think folks would have felt the depth of his presence.

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Dan Sanders — Born May 20

I write about people’s birthdays, so I figured I’d give this guy a try.

Dan Sanders was born on May 20 in Knoxville, Tennessee, and before he knew much of anything he was hauled into the strange hum of Oak Ridge — the Atomic City, where the sidewalks were clean, the secrets were thick, and the grown‑ups talked in half‑sentences. He spent his first ten years there, learning early that the world doesn’t always tell you the truth straight on.

Then came the moves, one after another, the kind of drifting that teaches a kid to keep his eyes open and his back to the wall. Eventually he landed in New York City with his parents, a place loud enough to either swallow you whole or teach you how to stand your ground. He chose standing.

When the Vietnam War came calling, he not only didn’t answer — he sent a resounding NO echoing through the induction center, loud enough that the walls probably still remember it. And the country made him pay for that honesty. He spent time in federal prison for refusing the war, learning a different kind of geography: steel bars, long nights, and the strange brotherhood of men who wouldn’t bend. It didn’t break him. It sharpened him.

He made his way from New York to Boston, where he built a quieter life without ever losing the grit of where he came from. Over the years he became a broadcaster, a writer, a guy who pays attention to the small moments most people walk right past. His work — whether memoir, poetry, or the stories he tells out loud — carries that mix of blunt honesty and dry wit that only comes from a life actually lived, not imagined.

Born on this day, May 20, Dan Sanders grew up between the secrets of Oak Ridge, the chaos of New York, the hard lessons of prison, and the hard‑earned calm of Boston — carrying all of it in the way he writes, remembers, and tells the truth as he sees it.

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Me and Watergate

May 17th 1973, the Senate Watergate Committee opened its hearings.

On May 17, 1973, most Americans first heard the names E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy—the men behind the Democratic National Committee headquarters break-in that would topple a presidency.

Those names meant something different to me; they weren’t just headlines, but men I actually encountered in the same prison.

Arrested in 1971, I moved through The Tombs and several transfers, arriving at Danbury in 1972—before Watergate gripped the nation. When Hunt and Liddy were convicted in early 1973 and already federal inmates, they entered my world.

I played chess with E. Howard Hunt, the former CIA man, whose calm, almost courtly manner made him a polite opponent. That year, G. Gordon Liddy and I were both in solitary, not for the same reasons or in the same cell, but in the same block.

And here’s the strange truth:

Liddy and I shared one thing — an absolute refusal to cooperate with the authorities.  

His refusal came from ideology and bravado; mine, from conscience. But to the Bureau of Prisons, defiance is defiance, and it lands you in the same concrete box.

It was surreal: America watched Watergate on TV while I shared a prison with the men who set it in motion. History unfolded in Washington, but some of them sat across from me at chess or were locked in solitary confinement down the tier.

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Wavy Gravy Was Born Today

Some people arrive in this world like a whisper. Wavy Gravy showed up like a marching band that took a wrong turn and decided to stay.

Born on this day in 1936, back when the world was still in black‑and‑white, he somehow grew into one of the most colorful human beings to ever wander through the American story. Hugh Romney was the name on the paperwork, but the universe had other plans. It needed a jester. A peacekeeper. A clown with a conscience. A man who could talk down a crowd of 400,000 hungry, muddy, half‑mad festival‑goers at Woodstock with nothing but a microphone and a grin.

He fed people. He calmed people. He made them laugh when they were ready to break. He turned compassion into a kind of performance art, and he never stopped believing that humor could be a tool for survival. The Hog Farm, the Seva Foundation, the endless parade of red noses and tie‑dye — it was all part of the same mission: make the world a little lighter, a little kinder, a little more human.

Wavy Gravy reminds us that you can take the work seriously without taking yourself seriously. That mischief can be mercy. That joy can be a form of resistance. And that sometimes the best way to keep the peace is to show up dressed like a psychedelic Santa Claus and tell everyone it’s going to be okay.

On the day he was born, the universe clearly decided it needed more color. And all these years later, we’re still living in the glow.

From Rambling Harbor, where the tide rolls in with its own kind of cosmic joke, I tip my hat to the man who proved you can change the world with a laugh and a ladle.

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Some Thoughts and a Poem

I was just remembering the old Trump slogan “Drill, Baby, Drill,” and while I know a lot of folks are hurting because of the price of oil, I still think this: if there’s no earth left to drive on, the price of gas doesn’t matter.

Oil drilling harms the Earth in multiple, well‑documented ways, affecting land, water, air, wildlife, and the climate. The damage begins long before the first drop of oil is pumped and continues through extraction, transport, and burning.

Oil drilling isn’t just a technical process or an economic talking point. It tears open land that never asked to be touched, poisons water that once ran clear and leaves behind a kind of silence that feels heavier than sound. Every spill, every leak, every plume of smoke is another reminder that the earth absorbs more than we ever admit — and it remembers longer than we ever will.

That’s the ground my poem “The Scorched Land” stands on. It came from the moment I realized the planet isn’t just a stage for our mistakes — it’s a witness. A witness to the forests scraped away for access roads, the oceans slicked with oil, the air thickened by what we pull from below. These aren’t abstract harms. They’re wounds. And the earth carries them the way a body carries scars.

The poem lives in that uneasy space where anger and grief meet the stubborn belief that we can still do better. It’s not political. It’s personal. It’s the voice you hear when the world goes quiet enough for you to notice what’s been lost and what’s still worth saving.

If you’ve ever felt that shift under your feet — that sense that the ground itself is keeping score — then “The Scorched Land” is the part of this post meant for you.

And if you want the part of this story that doesn’t fit neatly into facts or headlines, it’s in the poem that grew out of all this.

The Scorched Land

When the last of us remain on this scorched land,
We will watch the ancient footage of our folly—
How we spurned the cries of nature and her hand,
How we slowly drained the lifeblood of this planet.

We will see the glaciers melt, and oceans rise,
We will see the forests burn, and deserts spread,
We will see storms, floods, droughts, and fires,
We will see the mass extinction of the living dead.

We will wonder how we could have been so blind—
How could we have let our greed destroy our home?
How could we have ignored the signs of our decline?
How could we have sealed our fate with a catacomb?

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Fashion or Conspicuous Consumption on Display

Maybe it’s just me—many times in cases like this it is at least mostly me—and before I go any further, I want to say I did not watch it. Instead, I watched the New York Knicks get some Boston Celtics revenge against the Philadelphia 76ers. But this morning the news is all over the event like bugs on a bumper, and the event I’m referring to is the Met Gala. An evening where individual costumes commonly range from $50,000 to $200,000, the Met Gala is officially known as the Costume Institute Benefit. It exists to financially support the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Unlike other Met departments, the Costume Institute is self‑funded. According to reporting summarized by The New Republic, the Met Gala has raised approximately $166.5 million over the past decade—an average of about $16–17 million per year. What makes this arrangement striking is not simply the sum raised, but the structure behind it: the museum collects the revenue while the immense aesthetic costs are absorbed by designers and luxury brands. The result is an event framed as philanthropy but sustained by a logic that more closely resembles high‑end advertising.

In the end, watching the Met Gala felt less like witnessing fashion and more like staring straight into the neon heart of conspicuous consumption. All that glitter, all that theater, all that money draped over people who can barely walk in it — it hits me like a scream I can’t quite swallow. Maybe it’s just the guy in clean jeans and a sweatshirt talking, but there’s something grounding about clothes meant to be lived in, not displayed like trophies. And standing in the shadow of all that gaudiness, I’m reminded how far spectacle can drift from anything that feels real.

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Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger was born on May 3, 1919, in New York City. He became a legendary American folk musician, songwriter, and activist whose long career made a significant impact on music and social movements. Seeger wasn’t just part of the folk revival — he was one of the engines driving it. In the 1940s and ’50s, most of America listened to crooners and big bands. Seeger was dragging a long-neck banjo across union halls, college campuses, and picket lines. He taught people that folk music wasn’t a museum piece. It was a living language of protest, hope, and ordinary people trying to make the world a little fairer.rer.

When he joined The Weavers in 1948, the group became a kind of Trojan horse for social change. They took traditional songs — work songs, spirituals, Appalachian ballads — and smuggled them into the mainstream. Their version of “Goodnight, Irene” hit No. 1 in 1950, and suddenly millions of Americans were humming a tune from the Black folk tradition. That was Seeger’s quiet genius: he made the radical feel familiar.

But success painted a target on their backs. The early 1950s were the height of the McCarthy era, when suspicion was a national pastime, and anyone with left‑leaning politics was treated like a threat. Seeger had been outspoken about labor rights, racial justice, and peace — long before it was fashionable — and that made him an easy mark. The Weavers were dragged into the anti‑communist hysteria, labeled subversive, and effectively erased from radio and television. Concerts were canceled. Record contracts evaporated. Their career didn’t just stall; it was deliberately strangled. Seeger was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955. He refused to name names or apologize for his beliefs. He did not hide behind the Fifth Amendment. Instead, he told Congress he had a right to sing for anyone he pleased. It was a bold act of conscience, and it cost him dearly. He was indicted for contempt and blacklisted for years.

Even after these setbacks, Seeger stayed active in music. He wrote and made famous songs like “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” “If I Had a Hammer,” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!” These songs became important for civil rights, labor, and anti‑war movements. His version of “We Shall Overcome” helped make it a key song in the civil rights movement.

Seeger was also a committed activist beyond music. He worked for environmental causes, especially the cleanup of the Hudson River, and remained involved as he aged. He inspired artists like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen to continue his tradition of songs about social issues.

Seeger died January 27, 2014, at 94, but his songs and beliefs continue to inspire. He believed music could unite people.

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Earth Day at the Harbor

Today is Earth Day, and every year it rolls around, I think about how it didn’t begin with a parade or a proclamation, but with a book — Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring back in 1962. One woman sitting at a desk, writing about pesticides and poisoned water, managed to shake the country awake, at least for a moment.

And then there was Gaylord Nelson, a senator from Wisconsin who must’ve felt like he was shouting into the wind. He went on speaking tours, trying to get pollution onto the national radar. The people heard him. The politicians mostly shrugged and went back to whatever they were doing.

So the people did what people sometimes have to do: they organized themselves. They made enough noise that the country couldn’t ignore it anymore. That noise became the first Earth Day in 1970.

Standing here in Rambling Harbor, watching the tide drag the morning light across the water, it’s hard not to think about how long we’ve been warned, and how slow we’ve been to listen. The planet keeps sending messages. The question is whether we’re finally ready to answer.

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Rating: 1 out of 5.

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Nixon lies + Trump parallel Morning Ramble,

Every time I look back at Nixon’s Vietnam “we’re winning” routine, I hear an echo.

Here’s the Nixon highlight reel: • “Vietnamization is working.” (It wasn’t.) • “Peace is at hand.” (It wasn’t.) • “The enemy is weakening.” (They weren’t.) • “I have a secret plan.” (He didn’t.) • “We’re withdrawing because we’re winning.” (We weren’t.) • “The bombing is working.” (It didn’t change the terms.)

And now we’ve got a whole new era of leaders who pull the same trick — declare victory, deny reality, and hope nobody notices the smoke pouring out of the engine room.

Boston folks can smell that a mile away, and I hope the United States still can.

History doesn’t repeat, but the sales pitch sure does.

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Rating: 1 out of 5.

My Book Has Been Released

Dan Sanders grew up on Staten Island and learned early how to navigate the edges of things—family, faith, war, and the long road toward becoming himself. He spent years in radio, activism, and community work before settling in the Boston area, where he writes about the moments that refuse to stay quiet. He lives in what he calls Rambling Harbor with his cat, Shianna, and continues to tell the stories that shaped him, one honest line at a time.

The Road to “I Was There”

It didn’t happen all at once. It wasn’t a straight shot. It was a long road — with detours, breakdowns, and a few stretches where I didn’t touch the wheel at all.

This book took years. Not because I was writing every day, but because I wasn’t. I’d circle back, pick up a thread, lose it again. Life got in the way. So did doubt. So did the internet.

But the story never left. It waited. And every time someone asked — “Are you still working on it?” or “When’s the book coming out?” — it reminded me that I was still on the road.

So thank you. To everyone who kept asking. To those who read the early chapters, who saw the fog and the mountains and said, “Keep going.”

The book is out now. It’s called “I Was There”. Because I was. And now, so are you.

And who knows what comes next — maybe that’s the best part. Maybe even another book

follow this link to the Amazon page: https://a.co/d/01jMzMsm

About Me
I’m a dreamer with some rough edges, a word‑slinger, an actor, a picture‑maker, and a guy who hangs onto the stories that don’t always behave. I write from a small harbor shaped by memory, Boston weather, and all the quiet corners where truth sits down and refuses to move.
I Was There is one road I’ve walked. There’ll be others. There always are.

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Rating: 1 out of 5.

Rambling Harbor — Evening Edition Ramble AKA WTF Again

Tonight’s tide brought in a story I wish I didn’t recognize.

Evening settles over the Harbor like a worn jacket, the kind you keep by the door because it knows your shape better than you do. The light goes soft, the gulls quiet down, and the world finally stops shouting long enough for you to hear the small truths rattling around in your own chest. That’s when the news found me tonight — not with a bang, but with that familiar sting that comes when history gets pushed around like furniture someone’s tired of looking at.

Another round of funding carved out of Black museums. A Black heritage sign quietly taken down in Boston, as if memory itself were something optional, something you could tuck away when it makes the wrong people uneasy. It didn’t surprise me, but it sure as hell set something off — not a blaze, just that low, steady rumble from a place that’s been paying attention for too many years.

And this isn’t the first time I’ve felt that rumble. A few years back, I resigned from an organization I’d given time and heart to. Not because I heard the man say anything — I never did. This was all online, all at a distance. But then I read he was running for political office in Texas, and one of his proud public stances was opposition to what was then being called “critical race theory.” That was enough. I didn’t need a speech or a meeting or a debate. I just knew I wasn’t going to stay in a place led by someone who wanted to shut down the teaching of systemic racism and the harder truths of American history. If the truth makes you uncomfortable, maybe the problem isn’t the truth. So I walked. Quietly. Cleanly. And I didn’t look back.

And now here we are again, only the stage is bigger, and the stakes are heavier. Grants pulled from the Massachusetts Museum of African American History because the work doesn’t “align with priorities.” Heritage markers taken down like they were never there. Museums and cultural programs frozen out because they dare to tell the story straight. And the language is always the same — “divisive concepts,” “ideological concerns,” “restoring sanity.” Whenever politicians start talking about restoring sanity, you can bet they’re about to erase something.

It’s the same old dance: erase, rename, sanitize, repeat. Pretend it’s about budgets. Pretend it’s about neutrality. Pretend it’s anything except what it is — a slow tightening of the blindfold. And the people doing the tightening always swear they’re the ones protecting us from indoctrination. Meanwhile, the museums they’re defunding are the ones holding the receipts, the records, the stories this country has spent centuries trying to bury.

And what really gets me is the déjà vu of it all. I’ve seen this movie before. I’ve walked out of rooms — and online spaces — over it. And now it’s happening on a national scale, with institutions and memory and public truth on the line. Every time someone says “critical race theory,” what they really mean is “stop telling the parts of the story we don’t like.” Every time a sign comes down, or a grant disappears, they’re hoping the story goes with it.

So here I am, evening deepening over Rambling Harbor, the tide pulling at the edges of the day, and I’m thinking about how fragile memory becomes when people in power decide it’s optional. I’m thinking about how many times we’ve had to fight just to keep the truth in the daylight. And I’m thinking about how history isn’t fragile at all — but apparently some people are.

That’s the ramble tonight. The Harbor’s quiet, but the headlines aren’t. And somewhere out there, the truth is still trying to speak, even if someone keeps reaching for the dimmer switch.

From Rambling Harbor, I ask again: what do we do now?

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Rating: 1 out of 5.

One of the Unrecorded

I was just doing some research on this book, and as I’ve said, I’m horrible with dates. I always have been, as they drift into ancient history, they become a lost, whirling maze of amazement and often befuddled amusement. Just now, I was looking for someone from my CCNV days, and after a multitude of different search sources and avenues, including AI, it came back.

 “You’re trying to find someone who lived in a world that didn’t preserve itself well — CCNV, Catholic Worker, Berrigan circles, early women clergy. Those people didn’t leave digital trails.”

 I laughed aloud and said in my best Robert Deniro Taxi voice, “You talkin’ to me?” I know. I’m one of them, lost to time, memory, but maybe not to history.

About a year ago, I spent several weeks with on-and-off communication with various federal agencies trying to get copies of my arrest and prison records. I started with the bureau of prisons The Bureau of Prisons stated that they do not retain records beyond ten years,  They gave me a link to the FOIA ( Freedom of Information Act) the freedom of information act said that because of my type of cases any records would most likely be held by the National Archives they may have retained documentation related to this type of case. I wrote to the National Archives, but have not heard back. I am willing to bet no one has ever tried so hard to prove they are a criminal. Even though the law I broke needed to be broken, and I still would love to see my whole records including as Arlo Guthrie put it in the song “Alice’s Restaurant”, a black and white 8 by 10 glossy.

So yeah, I did and still do live in a world that doesn’t preserve itself well.

Part of me hopes we’re not all lost to history. And part of me thinks maybe that’s the way it was always meant to go.

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Rating: 1 out of 5.