New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Neil Young on May 3, and May 4, 1970

My colleague Carolyn Jack today is blogging about the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, a stirring example of art’s power to give vitality to a troubled city.  It isn’t easy to figure out an angle that ties the Jazz Fest to law, but I don’t need to.  One of my favorite lawyer/bloggers is Ray Ward, who blogs as Minor Wisdom (the name a href="http://www.figarospeech.com/it-figures/2006/3/21/black-and-white-and-red-all-over.html" target="_blank">paranomasia apparent to any lawyer). Ray lives in New Orleans, and for him the night before Jazz Fest is “Like Christmas Eve.” He’s my source for all things Jazz Fest, from the proper gear to all the performance schedules. I’m looking forward to his reports from the scene. He will be my link between law and Jazz Fest.  But, most of all, I wish I were there.

I would love to see Neil Young on May 3.  One amazing thing about that show on that date is its proximity to May 4. I’m not sure how many people think each year about May 4. I do.  I was 10 years old on May 4, 1970.  I remember coming home from school and hearing that Ohio National Guardsmen 45 minutes away from my house had shot students who had been protesting the Vietnam War.  I was young, but I was a dark kid, and I felt destroyed by the thought that in this land of free speech, where protest is considered an inalienable right, students could be shot dead for protesting a war, much less that war.  That Neil Young soon after gave voice to my utterly inarticulate despair forever made me devoted to him.