Sing a song about the past,

How this century came out of the last.

In nineteen-nine when KVP

Made paper from beets instead of a tree,

Jacob Kindleberger, old JK,

Helped Parchment see the light of day.

Parchment from veggies sold pretty well

Used for blankets, I’ve heard tell,

Blankets for plants, blankets for ice,

As a blanket for food waxed paper worked nice.

Kalamazoo became the Paper City:

The mills made money, though they weren’t very pretty.

And they touched my life before I knew,

Because my wife once worked there, too,

In a summer job on a hot-melt machine,

Making containers for the town’s ice cream.

 

When as they will the times marched on,

The mills closed down, but they’re not gone.

And the poison they left that you couldn’t see

Is here in the twenty-first century,

In the runoff from every container and label

Contaminating the water table.

I’m not in the trade of laying blame

On a business that brought the city fame

But there’s one thing that’s always sure:

The next generations have to cure

The consequences at the core

Of each success that came before.

And what began as one man’s dream

As a harmless way to freeze ice cream

Becomes a song about the past,

How our century copes with the last.