Sweetie Pie Blues by Stan Paregien Sr

Stan Paregien wrote and copywrited this song in 2010. Peggy Paregien filmed this performance on Oct. 6, 2010. It tells true story of the horrible disaster that took place in the middle of the night on March 12, 1928. That is when the brand new St. Francis Dam, located 6 miles northeast of Saugus, Calif., filled with rain water for the very first time. And about midnight it broke, just flat collapsed, sending a 180 ft wall of water down the canyon and spreading west through the entire Santa Clara Valley all the way to the Pacific ocean at Ventura. Over 500 people were killed, with many bodies never found. A man who came to be called "Sweetie Pie" lost his parents in the flood. Something snapped in his depressed mind and he spent the rest of his life roaming the riverbed between the Newhall Ranch, east of Piru, and the way past Fillmore. I personally saw the man only once. That was when I was riding my first horse, Duke, from Piru back east to our home on the Newhall Ranch (on the south side of Highway 126, about 100 yards east of the Los Angles/Ventura County line). He startled me as he came out of the bushes, but he said nothing and kept walking downstream. That was in 1955, some 27 years after the flood. This song is dedicated to the more than 500 victims of the flood and to those, including Sweetie Pie, who lost loved ones in the disaster. It did millions and millions of dollars of damage to property and the valley. And the man largely responsible was William Mulholland, head of the Los Angeles Power & Water Department. The dam was built on a poor foundation and, worse, Mulholland added several feet to the height of the dam, thus ignoring the approved engineering blueprints. I also invite you to search FLICKR for the hundreds of photos that I have posted there. And, yes, I do have a Facebook account. My web site is www.paregien.net

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Sweetie Pie Blues
• Stan Paregien
• Paregien
• William Mulholland
• Sweetie Pie
• St. Francis Dam
• dam disaster
• dam flood
• flood
• 1928
• March 12
• Saugus
• Piru
• Fillmore
• Ventura
• Pacific Ocean
• folk music
• blues music

[TeamBl8s]

Your guitar looks so cool!