Word: raffies
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Like a million other hippies, Raffi strummed ballads by Dylan, Guthrie and Seeger, plus a few that he had written, in local coffeehouses. His wife Debi Pike taught kindergarten. For a while, the going was tough -- until Raffi found a way to merge what they both...
They liked Raffi. He surprised and delighted without being cutesy. He sang "Baa baa white sheep" because, he says, "I never knew why it had to be black." In Down by the Bay, kids for a magical moment could imagine a moose kissing a goose and llamas eating their pajamas. They listened to him sing "I wonder if I'm growing?" and believed his promise that, eventually, they would. Raffi's dynamic with children was rooted in trust. He never patronized...
Spirit rejuvenated, Raffi, 43, is experiencing the indignities of middle age. He suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome, a hernia, bursitis and high cholesterol. To cleanse his system of impurities, he eats only brown rice and fruit. For the hernia, he sleeps with a magnet on his stomach...
Strolling the calm paths of Stanley Park, he muses about the perils of celebrity. "The hysteria around public figures is unhealthy," he says. "The inner landscape of their personalities is barren." A mother approaches, dragging along a shy three-year-old. "Are you the famous children's singer Raffi?" she gushes. "I was," he answers. Gently, he declines to sing or / sign an autograph. As the irked mother huffs off, he blows a kiss to her child, who smiles knowingly...
...proud-prowed tugboats ply their course along the inlet, and Raffi remarks how much he likes them. Reminded that they depend on fossil fuels, he smiles ruefully. "I know, I know," says the man in the child. Then the child in the man, who has given pleasure to millions of others, asks, "Ah, when will I understand...