“Paved paradise to put up a parking lot ... ” These lyrics were written back in 1970 when Joni Mitchell wrote the song “Big Yellow Taxi.” Mitchell got the idea for the song during a visit to Hawaii. She looked out of her hotel window at the spectacular Pacific mountain scenery, and then down to a parking lot.

Joni said this about writing the song to journalist Alan McDougall in the early 1970s:

“ I wrote ‘Big Yellow Taxi' on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart ... this blight on paradise. That's when I sat down and wrote the song. ”

How apropos those words are today. Especially when applied to the prospect of a massive big-box development paving over one of the last undeveloped, green and open pastures along the I-70 corridor in Eagle County.

“Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?” There really is only one true question for the voters in the town of Eagle: Paradise or pavement? There will be no going back.

New New Wallace

Edwards