Archive for February, 2007
February 28th, 2007
The South End, as always, is way out front on the region’s transportation issues. Take the Elger Bay Canal, the Big Dig. Fifty years ago we were advocating a series of locks and dams to connect Port Susan with Saratoga Passage, open up shipping thru the South End – South End ISLAND, I might add — to the Mainland from Langley, Greenbank, and Coupeville. Sure, it would’ve been costly, but in 1950 dollars, about what a Lot costs in Finnistere now.
But just because nobody listened to us THEN doesn’t mean we ain’t talking NOW. One thing about a South Ender, we don’t wait for an audience. As the Band has proved many a concert.
Today we have what some see as a problem—and the South End sees as an opportunity — at the Mark Clark Bottleneck Bridge. Two lanes squeezing thru the Sewage Flats of Stanwood, all cramming onto the Mark Clark, a 50’s bridge named after a WW2 general who almost, but not quite, lived here. If he’d cut a wider swath in the war, maybe we’d a built a wider bridge.
The South End Greater Metropolitan Economic Council –SEGMUCK— has not only a vision, but the solution. A tunnel, ladies and gentlemen, 6 lanes UNDER not only the Stillaguamish, but under all of Stanwoodopolis. Out of sight, out of mind. A win-win for the Camano commuter sick of big box grocery chains, dying strip malls, bad signage and the Twin City Foods Concrete Curtain. Sure it’s an engineering challenge. Sure it costs more. But in 2050 dollars probably what an apartment costs in Camano Condos.
Call Mary Margaret. Let’s grab that Seattle Viaduct money while they’re busy squabbling. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. Don’t make the mistake of the Elger Bay Canal. Build the Stanwood Bypass. Together we can dig our way home!!
February 28th, 2007
We been hearin for a couple of years now about the Bird Flu Pandemic that’s on its way. Dire warnins. Terrible predictions. Some chicken farmer gets sick in the Java jungle, it’s on the news. World Health Organization sends a team, quarantines the village, makes sure the HN 51 virus is neutralized. WITH extreme prejudice. Kill the flock. Burn the banties. Nothin less than the savin of the human race is at stake.
So along comes the Snow Goose Festival and what do THEY do? That’s right: invite about two godzillion of these typhoid mary’s to camp in our fields, spreadin god knows what virus in their prodigious fertilizers and then send human beings traipsing down to be exposed and contaminated.
I am amazed and alarmed! Where is the Island County Health Department Rapid Response Team? Where is Homeland Security? Oh sure, they can stop a South End String Band 4th of July concert over concerns WE”RE a public menace, send the Gestapo down to Tyee Grocery and shut it down, but get on top of this Bird Flu Pandemic? Naw, it’s okay, go ahead, destroy the planet.
The Band was gonna boycott. I mean somebody’s got to have some starch in their boxer’s even if it is unpopular. Somebody’s got to stand up and yell FIRE when they see smoke. ….. but then they offered us free dinner if we’d stay quiet. And we decided maybe we were over-reactin a little. I mean, come on, the WHOLE planet?? I doubt it. But we did make DAMN sure that bbq dinner was NOT chicken. Or turkey. Or any other virus infected bird dinner. Migratin salmon, we were assured. NOT that farm stuff that spreads Fish Flu.
So sit back and stop worryin and let’s all just enjoy this next calmin number.
February 28th, 2007
You all probably heard about the Wild Child we had on the South End, some 15 year old kid who broke into our houses, stole our laptops and credit cards and sense of security, who made himself right to home. For about half a year he evaded SWAT teams and sheriff’s posses and vigilante watchdogs, sort of a Jesse James of the nettle forests.
For awhile it got to be Big News. TV crews rolled in, mobile units broadcast from the South Grange and the Visitor Center. You’d’ve thought Bonnie and Clyde had drove in from the 30’s, holed up at the Tyee Alamo and were holdin off Eliot Ness and 100 G-men. The South End was suddenly famous.
The Band was gonna write the Ballad of Coltin Moore, teenage desperado, outfoxin the sheriff’s department and terrorizing the citizens of O-Zi-Ya and Mabana. Al Capone with zits, Pretty Boy Floyd barefootin in the ravines, Machine Gun Kelly with bear strength pepper spray.
Like I say, we thought about helping make this kid a Legend. Probably end up with a hit single, sell a million copies, create a role model for the entire Stanwood High School, you know, supplant rock and roll stars and basketball millionaires with fellow adolescent malcontents.
We’d have a woods full of angst ridden wannabees, breedin like rabbits back up the hollers, helping themselves to vacant homes and wine cellars, orderin upscale supplies off the internet with stolen identities, barkin at the moon at night in wild Baccahanlias, refusing to surrender, refusing to go back to Normal existence, refusing the American Dream reality….. And that’s when the Band realized, we got too many artists and musicians ALREADY livin like that down here, we don’t need an overpopulation competin with us. So instead, we wrote this next song: The Ballad of Coltin Moore, Attorney at Law, rehabbed and ready to make an honest livin. Goes like this rightchere.