Please forgive me for dipping into the "memoir" once again:—----------------------------------------------------
During the early Forties my mother and my two sisters, Mary and Pat rose early on Sunday mornings to go to the Civic Ice Arena for figure skating lessons and practice sessions. Dad and I got up later, ate breakfast, and listened to a local fellow on the radio who played the guitar, sang songs, and told stories about the Pacific Northwest. He talked about Pacific Northwest history and folklore, and he had guests on his program, like James Stevens, the Northwest writer and collector of Paul Bunyan stories.
Dad grew up on San Juan Island. He loved the islands, the forests, the mountains, the water. He especially loved fishing, or just getting out on the water in a boat. When the fellow on the radio spun tales about "stump ranchers" and early settlers who survived so long on a diet of clams that their stomachs rose and fell with the tide, Dad knew the kind of people he was talking about.
The fellow on the radio swiftly became something of a local character. He owned an aquarium on the Seattle waterfront. He invited everyone to come down to Pier 54, foot of Madison Street, and see Pat the Seal. For a mere nickel, you could come inside and gaze in amazement at live octopi, clams, scallops, sea urchins, and many other wonders and marvels from the dark and mysterious depths of Puget Sound. Soon he expanded. He opened a seafood bar next door to the aquarium. Clams were his specialty. He particularly pushed clam nectar. Although he made no actual therapeutic claims for the stuff, he did say that any married man who wanted a second helping of clam nectar had to bring a note from his wife.
His singing voice was a light tenor, and he accompanied himself by playing occasional chords on the guitar. He sounded a little like Burl Ives. The theme song he sang for his radio program was The Old Settler's Song, which contains the verse
No longer the slave of ambition
I laugh at the world and its shams,
As I think of my happy condition
Surrounded by acres of clams.
When he opened a full-service seafood restaurant at the site of the seafood bar (which is still there) and the aquarium (which is not), he took the last three words of the song as the name of the restaurant. Many seafood restaurants were to follow, including The Captain's Table, The Salmon House, and what appears to be the start of a chain of drive-in restaurants à la Colonel Chicken—but featuring seafood, of course.
Ivar Haglund is gone now, but his first restaurant is still there, on Pier 54, foot of Madison Street:
Ivar's "Acres of Clams."----------------------------------------------------
Listening to Ivar Haglund's Sunday morning radio program when I was pre-pubescent was one of my first introductions to folk music. Although much of what Ivar sang was pretty light stuff, such as All Hail the Happy Toredo (a toredo is a marine worm that eats hell out of the hulls of wooden ships) and stuff loaded with local puns, he did occasionally sing something of genuine historical or musical interest. He was considered by many (himself included) to be Seattle's "resident folksinger," although to my knowledge, he never gave any concerts, sang in any clubs, or made any records: just his radio program in the Forties and, later, on commercials for his seafood restaurants. Nor did he participate in any way in the Folk Revival when it hit this area. In fact, he seemed to studiously avoid the folk scene. Too bad. He could have been a lot of fun and a real resource, but he chose not to be.
A few years after he was a guest on my television program (!!), I ran into him again, oddly enough, at one of his own restaurants—the cocktail lounge in The Captain's Table—where he had a folksinger named Nagle Jackson performing. I went to hear Nagle, and when Nagle and I were talking after his last set and just as the place was about to close, Ivar walked in. He, Nagle, and I sat at one of the tables in the lounge and passed Nagle's guitar around and sang at each other for about an hour. Ivar knew some good stuff, but he wasn't very inclined to share it.
Often wondered what became of Nagle Jackson. He was pretty good, but he was primarily an actor. Last I heard of him was years ago. He was acting at the Ashland Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
As Ivar used to say, "Keep clam."
Don Firth