‘Blueberry Hill’
On May 16, 2012, there was a missed opportunity for the worldwide peace movement. Why?
Hollywood celebrities were in the audience when Vladimir Putin of Russia, host of the gathering, surprised everyone when in his strongly accented Russian-English crooned “Blueberry Hill,” a la Fats Domino, with a backup of Russian lovelies and an Afro-American combo behind him.
What an opportunity for the advancement of Russo-American friendship. YouTube has the clip, and it is worth seeing to believe.
The lyrics of the song are quite interesting and apropos: What is a Blueberry Hill? Are we talking about the end of World War II? Peace, mutual trust, cooperation and the vows of no expansion of militarism?
“Though we’re apart/you’re part of me still. … But all of those vows we made were never to be.” Something tragically sad here, for sure.
The occasion of the gathering, a fundraiser, was for cancer research and hospital facilities in St. Petersburg, Russia. A common good cause.
Is it possible that all of the fault for the broken dreams must fall on Russia?
During World War II, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), today the Russian Federation, was an ally of the U.S., Britain, France and other allied nations, and alone lost 27 million citizens in defeating Nazism.
My father was born in Russia, and I remember his joy at the end of WWII.
His dreams were that he would be able to reunite in one fashion or another with his large family that had sent him to America in 1910 to shovel some gold out of the streets, send it back to Minsk, and bring over the family for their Blueberry Hill.
He got the shovel and was disconnected from his ohana due to two world wars. And then the Iron Curtain fell, NATO was born, and anti-Soviet and anti-Russian mania ruled the day. The McCarthy era got rolling in America, including Hawaii.
Papa was angered and never quite recovered, although he did become an American citizen. But he was brokenhearted; there were tears in his eyes when he realized that all of the vows and dreams he lived with were never to be. And why?
I don’t look to Putin or Biden or Jesus, but at a National Archives clip on YouTube to see the clear vision of President Dwight David Eisenhower who in his farewell speech on Jan. 17, 1961, warned the American people and the world of the American (now global) military-industrial complex.
Watch it. It’s an essential part of contemporary American history.
Tomas Belsky
Hilo