Against my better judgment, I'm going to post the following song. This comes from a small collection of songs written by the late, great Ivar Haglund. For those of you who never had the chance to meet and hear him, I'll give a highly prejudiced background. Ivar was pure Seattle. He opened a waterfront "Aquarium" just after WW2. He charged five cents to enter, and you could wander around and look at a dozen very small salt water aquariums full of the normal stuff stuff we always saw in Puget Sound: bull heads, dog fish, star fish. It was NOTHING exciting, but it was new. I was about 7 or 8 when my folks took me there first. But what was a treat, was Ivar, sitting on a folding chair with his guitar, singing these goofy songs whenever he was bored. From this very modest start, his empire grew to a maximum of at least five premier restaurants during the Worlds Fair era of 1962. Many of us, including Don Firth, had personal contact with Ivar Haugland. The stories we tell of him are legion. So, going through my library, I just found this book he self published in 1953 ..."An Ivar Book Of Ballads." He charged the mighty sum of fifty cents. I've always viewed this book of twelve songs as pretty silly, except that he did publish the complete version of the traditional "Old Settler." Here is Ivar's introduction to a song titled "Puget Sound." ... "In these few bouncing stanzas the late Carlton Fitchett, beloved reportorial rhymester of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, has composed a catchy metrical catalogue of most of the places and things Ivar sings about ..."

PUGET SOUND

As happy as a butter clam when tides are high I sing
A grateful ode to Puget Sound the land of everything
I love it from Tulalip to Puyallup Sequim and Pysht
And to the Dosewallips where many times I've fished

Cho 1

From Brinnon to the Bogachiel, from Lummi to La Push
And from the lordly Sol Duc to the lovely Duckabush
From Samish to Sammamish, SuQuamish to Quilcene,
The climate is so friendly it's a land that's evergreen.

There's peace on the Skokomish on the Queets and on the Hoh,
There's calm on the Nisqually born of ageless ice and snow
A land that Nature loves so much-She stays the whole year 'round-
I'd trade a royal palace for a shack on Puget Sound

Chorus 2

There's Chimacum and Steilaccom where spouts the goeduck
The singing Stillaguamish and the swirling skookumchuck
And Moclips and Copalis where razor clams abound
-A little piece of heaven is a shack on Puger Sound

Note, I did my best to note this exactly as Ivar published it, tho I was tempted to put in some puncuation. Also, for those of us natives who grew up with these local names, we just know how to pronounce the names right. For years I've suggested to the various Governors that we deny a Washington State driver license to anyone that cannot pronounce these names correctly ... no Governor has ever answered my letters ... sigh! CHEERS and ENJOY, Bob Nelson (Mary Garvy, if this doesn't drive you out of the closet I don't know what will).