Dear Mr. Stookey, If I had realized that there was a way to say thank you prior to reading about the passing of Peter Yarrow, I would have sent this much earlier. So, thank you so very much for the music and for all the joy. My entire generation is indebted to you, and is so very lucky to have lived in a time where your music was available. Your music, specifically the Peter, Paul and Mommy album, was the first I ever heard, and will always be my favorite. (I still own the record). What a rare and lucky thing to have had your beautiful music grace our lives. It should not be taken as a sign of less appreciation that until my 30s, I thought the words to Puff the Magic Dragon included the words “vanished in the ottomist.” What a surprise to read “autumn mist” so many years later. To be fair, if you can have Honah Lee, “ottomist” makes perfect sense. We never questioned your magic, or the lyrics. Our lives would have been so much less joyful, especially dealing with the increasingly devastating losses of our adult lives (a functioning planet, democracy, and the normal griefs of aging), if we were not able to hold on to your music and its meaning. That we can look back in gratitude for your gifts and continue to find joy in your music is a serious thing in a world that increasingly works to destroy both joy and beauty. You have made the world not only better for having been in it, which is rare, but have made it more beautiful, which is much harder. As it turns out, Puff was right. Getting older comes with the awareness and experience of loss. But as the song also makes clear, the magic remains. And as you wrote perfectly in the Wedding Song, love does indeed both bring us here and bring us life. Your music brought us love and magic in equal measure. There is no way to say thank you adequately in words for something that can’t be expressed by mere words. Thank you anyway. Thank you forever. PS. I don’t know where the magic dragon cave is located, but I bet there is some great music happening there.