arlington concert in the parks

August 28th, 2007

     Time was when Arlington was like Stanwood, off the beaten path a few miles.  Off the interstate anyway.  Used to be the two towns were connected.  You could run the steamers up from the Sound into the Stilly clear past Arlington.  Stanwood to Florence to Silvana to here.  There’s places now a kayak drags bottom.
     Arlington was a river town.  You got some parks here on the Stilly so you know.  Stanwood doesn’t.  Twin City Foods has a quarter mile wall 20 feet high that cuts off about the only view of the river.  Folks driving to Camano only see the sewer lagoon.  Now, you didn’t hear me say Stanwood’s a Sewer Town.
   
     Twin City Foods, in case you newcomers thought it was Arlington and Smokey Point, Twin City foods is Arlington and Stanwood.  Biggest independent frozen food company in America.  I hope that packing water isn’t coming from where I think it is.  I  hope it’s coming from the Stilly up here.
     Arlington – like every other town in Western Washington – is growing like a nettle in elephant manure.  No stopping it.  You even got suburbs now  —— Smokey Point, your very own Tijuana.  Smokey Point wasn’t a PLACE back when, it was an exit off I-5.  Van’s Bar, which was, for you newcomers, right where the Rite-Aid store sits now — and oh yeah, it was the smokiest bar I’ve ever been in.  So now you know why they called it Smokey Point.
     We used to come up to the Old Time Fiddlers night at the log shelter next to what’s now the new Museum.  Those were the hetdays of Arlington.  The Love Family.  The Olympic Theater.  The White Horse Tavern.  The Bluebird Café.  They’d play old time stuff and I thought, being a 30 year old beginning banjo player, I thought these old birds were Ancient.   Probably Arlington Pioneers.
     Now I think back on it fondly.  And they were younger’n us old coots, probably.  This next song they used to do.  Brand new then.  An old standard now.  Goes like this rightchere.

Entry Filed under: deer in the headlights (concert commentary)