There are so many beautiful places on the Saanich Peninsula. I grew up swimming in Elk and Beaver Lakes and at one point lived at Willis Point. This song is a lament for a beautiful place that was lost in order for the city to have a garbage dump. Heal Lake was drained and sealed in order to have more room for the mountains of refuse coming from the whole district. I hope someday we will learn to do better than consume and consume and dispose and dispose.
Song Lyrics
Ode to Hartland
When I was a boy, I took out the garbage;
Two cans a week for a family of six
And all it contained was tin cans and bottles
And broken down things that my Dad couldn’t fix
They hauled it away, ten miles from town.
To the green Hartland Valley, deep in the woods
By the little Tod Creek that the kids used to play in
That ran to the bay where the fishing was good
Chorus
And now sixty years of garbage fills up the valley
The stream runs poison down to the bay
Where the oysters and clams are contaminated
From all of the garbage that we threw away
We raised our babies in disposable diapers
Took them on picnics, used disposable plates.
We drank our beer from disposable bottles.
Maybe we’re just a disposable race …chorus
My generation has political clout
We vote the new bastards in; vote the old bastards out.
My generation knows the earth is worth saving.
My generation still takes the garbage out. …chorus