Friends of the Winthrop Library provided the baked goodies last weekend at the annual North Cascades Mountain Guides’ Ski Swap staged in the Winthrop Barn. Swap sales benefitted the Methow Valley Nordic Team; baked good sales benefitted the new library’s outdoor plantings.
It’s been said that any two people on Earth are six or fewer acquaintance links apart. A parlor game was even created where players arbitrarily choose an actor and then connect that actor to another actor via a film that they both appeared in and then repeating the process to try to find the shortest path that ultimately leads to actor Kevin Bacon. Thus, the name “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” or “Bacon’s Law.”
I’ve had a few Bacon’s Law episodes of late. Pete Barlow, a longtime property owner on the West Chewuch, recently emailed me about my Sept. 14 column that mentioned Maria Grever as the writer of the popular song “What a Difference a Day Makes.” It turns out that Pete’s neighbor and good friend in Seattle is the great-great-grandson of Maria Grever. He shared with Pete the link to an NPR Latino-USA podcast entirely devoted to the life and career of Maria.
Maria was sent to New York with two young children by her husband, allegedly to escape political turmoil during the Mexican Revolution. Maria composed from 800-1,000 songs from the 1920s until her death in 1951. In addition to the well-known song I wrote about, she composed numerous top hits, scored for big movie houses, wrote operas and Broadway musicals, yet few know her name. Find the podcast “Genias in Music: Maria Grever” wherever your podcasts reside. Maria is definitely worthy of being remembered.
On my first visit to the beautiful Winthrop library, I checked out one memoir and requested another. I tend to be a reader of memoirs. I love the voyeuristic view into the lives of people, some intriguing, some famous, and some regular people, just like me, who have a tale to tell. I read Brandi Carlile’s memoir “Broken Horses,” followed closely behind by Montana U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s “Grounded.” (Then Demi Moore’s “Inside Out” that I found in the Mazama free little library.) How are these six degrees going to work?
Barely in her 40s, Brandi is already a Seattle icon. Her roots go back to her crazy childhood, which began in Burien, where her parents met when they worked at SeaTac Red Lion. Following evictions, creditors and job losses, she was moved around the Puget Sound dozens of times by the time she was a teenager. Her music, however, propelled her forward even amongst all the disfunction. The day came when she played onstage with Seattle’s blockbuster rock band Pearl Jam.
Just so happens that Pearl Jam’s bass guitarist Jeff Ament grew up in Big Sandy, Montana, a town of declining population — just under 600 in 2021. Guess who else grew up there and still lives on his family farm out in the county? Jon Tester. Ament’s father was the first barber to give Tester his classic buzz cut. In addition, Pearl Jam has performed concerts at University of Montana in Missoula as fundraisers for Tester.
Wait, there’s more. Jeff Ament is a lifelong skateboarder. He has been helping fund skatepark projects in Montana and beyond for more than a decade and a half. My hometown of Livingston was the lucky recipient of one of Jeff’s skatepark projects.
There’s another connection here. My son, who is deep in the music industry in Seattle, has known and calls Mike McCready, lead guitarist of Pearl Jam, a friend. A few years ago, the McCreadys hosted a generously catered Thanksgiving dinner for a collage of guests, including my husband and me. There are some things that just seem otherworldly.
And more? My classmate and good friend, Sandy Smith, (we were called the Smithsters in high school) has three sons, one of whom lives in Seattle. Coby Schultz and his partner (you guessed it) Barry Ament, Jeff’s brother, are the famous Seattle graphic design team known as Ames Brothers. They are well known for the Pearl Jam posters they have created. One time walking down the concourse at SeaTac, an entire exhibit of their posters drew me in.
Currently, they have partnered with the Seattle Seahawks to curate a Gameday Poster Series, selecting Northwest artists to design each poster. Coby Schulz is the artist for this past Sunday’s (Oct. 30) Week 8 Seahawks vs. Giants poster.
And Demi — well, I listened to her then-husband Bruce Willis’s band The Accelerators, at The Mint (which they bought) in Hailey, Idaho, many years ago. Demi was smoking a cigar and sporting her bald GI Jane head at the table next to me.
So, read a book. You never know what six degrees it will connect you to.
Off topic: Thanks to Lost River Road residents for donating baked goods for the bake sale hosted by Friends of the Winthrop Library (FOWL) during the annual North Cascades Mountain Guides’ Ski Swap at the Winthrop Barn, which returned after a pandemic pause. The FOWL sale benefits the new library’s outdoor plantings.
