When I was in Seattle, Alex Kostalnik asked me about Mom’s song “Skagit Valley,” which mentions Seattle. I told him what I knew, but here’s the story from Malvina herself: November 25, 1970 We made the Northwest tour a couple of weeks ago. I was dubious about it, as I always am. But these things are arranged for months beforehand, so there’s nothing much I can do about the feeling, “What am I doing this for?” Good thing. Voice of Women, Canada’s Women for Peace, had arranged a lot of publicity set-ups for me, to push the peace conference. First thing we got off the plane, we went with Kay Inglis to the airport inn for an interview with CBC television news. Pleasant man videotaped a long interview, and much of it was used. They have an easier way with television time than we do in the States. Then we went directly to the studios of CKNW where Art Finley has a prize-winning news program. We knew each other from San Francisco, where he was Major Art on one of the best children's TV shows at the time. He still has a syndicated cartoon feature that appears in the San Francisco Chronicle, and lots of San Franciscans come to the Finley Christmas party every year. We taped an interview, and at the end Art said, “Now we’ll take ten minutes out while Malvina writes a song about Skagit Valley.” He briefed me about the Valley, which was to be flooded by Seattle Light for an auxiliary power source. I did write a song before dinner, and Vera Johnson, Canadian Songwriter singer who was at the Inglises picked it up. There was to be a demonstration at the Valley against the destruction of the place, destruction already okayed by Minister of the Interior Ray Williston and the provincial government. I couldn’t go to the demonstration because I had a concert in Victoria. Vera phoned me at the Strathcona Hotel. The kids at Inglis’ had fooled around and erased part of the song from the cassette, so I sang it for her with the new last verse. I’d written that about four in the morning after I’d taped the song for Art, so I called him in the morning and we retaped it before I had to get the ferry for Victoria. They had expected a few hundred at the Valley demonstration. It’s a rugged 75 mile trip over the mountains. Over two thousand showed up, and the camera got them all, in the fine Valley setting, marching with signs...  Skagit Valley ©1970, sung by Malvina In Vancouver, Vera had taught the people in the busses going to the demonstration at Skagit Valley the chorus of my song, and the news cameras got her singing the whole thing, the cameras moving to the people singing along, the dad with the kid on his shoulder. There was a rustic carved wooden sign that said “Skagit Park.” Bud had suggested to Art Finley that the movement give the campaign to save the Valley a positive thrust, demanding that the area be turned into a park. Art had picked up the idea and moved it on. And now, it is a park. THE LAMBETH CHILDREN  Malvina sings “The Lambeth Children O” ©1966 My mom wrote this song in 1966 when she read in the newspaper about children in Lambeth, Ontario, Canada saving some maple trees there. In 1989, Pass It On, a newsletter of the Children’s Music Network, brought more news: “This May when the M.B. McEachren School in Lambeth, Ontario asked Sandy Byer to perform stories for grades K-8, she decided to also bring Malvina Reynolds’ song about an event 25 years ago in that very town. When she sang the story of children sitting up in trees to prevent them from being cut down to widen a road, the children had neither heard the song before nor heard the story of local civil disobedience. But . . . some of their parents may have been the very ones up in the trees at the time. One of the teachers told Sandy that her father-in-law still lived on that street and, in fact, had been the very one who organized the opposition. Sandy went out to visit the trees and found them to be large lovely maples, still flourishing. Now more trees nearer to the school are again scheduled to be felled to widen a section of the road. Perhaps her visit, her carrying of Malvina’s song, will suggest a possible response.” Sandy Byer is a storyteller and singer who lives in Toronto, Canada, a few hours from Lambeth. In 1990, Candy Forest and I recorded the song with the Singing Rainbow Youth Ensemble. Here’s that version, with Candy, who was in her high school marching band, playing high school marching band music on the synthesizer.  AND A HOT LINK: Today is the fourth day of Christmas, still time for some Christmas ninja boomwhacker madness on YouTube. Too fun. © 2007 by Nancy Schimmelhttp://www.cmnonline.org/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1W4Q4i9HBI
Detail of a photo taken by Daniel Mosquin in Skagit Valley Provincial Park. http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/2007/10/skagit_valley_provincial_park.phphttp://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/skagit.html
Friday, December 28, 2007
SKAGIT VALLEY