It was 23 years ago that our state celebrated its centennial with a lot of hoopla all over the place. As a member of the state commission, one of my jobs was to chair a committee to put out a state songbook of folk songs. And the folksinger who dug out those songs for us was Linda Allen of Bellingham. We had a great time choosing the list, which was published that year.

We met Linda at Holden Village last weekend, where she and her husband, Scott Glaba, moved earlier in the year. He is the business manager for the village. We note that our Chelan County chairman of the local committee, Les Tiedeman, just passed away in Leavenworth. And the man who ran the whole centennial, Put Barber, is coming to Leavenworth this weekend to celebrate his and Val’s 34th wedding anniversary.

When I break out in song of “Quincyland, My Quincyland,” it reminds me that the songbook was how I found that historic folksong. We didn’t get every song we wanted into the book. Co-chair Jean Gardner wanted “Louie Louie,” but could not get it from the publisher.

Those were fun memories.