So, finally, we got around to doing something to honour Canada’s legendary singer/songwriter, Joni Mitchell, who spent enough years in Saskatoon for people to say that she is from here, which is fine. Her dad was an RCAF officer, just like mine was, so like me she moved around a lot in her young life before coming to Saskatoon at age 11. She attended Aden Bowman Collegiate but I don’t think there’s anything at the school commemorating that fact. Rolling Stone has called her one of the greatest songwriters ever and her 1971 album, Blue, is often called one of the best albums of all time. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 and Allmusic, the largest music database on the web, has stated that when the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the 20th century. In spite of all this, we’ve been wrangling for about 20 years as to how to somehow honour her in this city. If memory serves it even got to the point a few years ago where she got fed up and made a comment or two that led some to believe she doesn’t even like the city and couldn’t care less whether we recognized her or not. I met her once at a reception and we had a nice chat. She was pleasant and gracious and never hinted at anything negative about Saskatoon. I for one am glad we have settled on naming a walkway at River Landing for her. The naysayers who don’t like her will get over it and we can get on to other things.

That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.