I grew up on a farm about 100 miles outside of Seattle that started as a homestead that my great grandmother and great grandfather from Germany started and my family still operates.

I moved to Seattle in 1978 after graduating with MSEE. So I have seen a lot of changes over the years, but my family going back generations have seen even more.

I recall fondly living on Queen Anne Hill (first hill north of downtown) which was my first place here in Seattle. I rode the trolley to work every day and would stop by and get coffee at a goofy place down in Pike Place Market called "Starbucks" and would tell people at work " hey you gotta try this Italian coffee, it's really good".

But the "old Seattle", pre-Amazon and pre-Microsoft had a real grungy industrial patina to it (maybe that is where the music got influence?).

Do I Love the old Seattle? Absolutely. Do I long for it? Not in the least. Every phase this great city has gone through has changed it, before Amazon, Microsoft, before that Boeing before that Weyerhaeuser. Each transformation, in my view, has brought in new people and new character and for me, I welcome it.

I am going to post here a poem from a book of poems my Great Grandmother wrote for family back in Germany. It is about this area as it think it expresses my view of the changes, maybe I see it the way she did?

The Sleeping Washington ---------------------------------------------------

The forest, a sound is not quiet in.

Washington sleeps and with nature.

Small bird mutely and the bear rests hidden,

Fleeting often only one deer hurries as frightened.

Even the Pine Trees, deliberate,thoughtful and old,

Bend the heads and nod soon.

Slumber sweetly, only lock the eyes,

Know not for a long your power rests.

If light clouds in the sky draw

And your persistent rushing wind shakes.

Sleep only, State of Washington, as child.

Sunday is today, in the solemn silence The forest is.

The serious pines their treetops bends as to the prayer.

But the environment of God's spirit and breath everywhere.

So I want to bend myself in deep humility Before you,alone

With fervency, for your benediction ask you, God the father.

Retain also all my serene love

Also ask I you, carry here a flowering Of colonies;

With work, quite soon, railways, churches, schools, Culture drawn in

The jungle country, a rich bit of earth in Washington.

Therefore, I beg you, O Father, Thy blessing

that it draws them not.