She wrote half of your favorite songs. Now she’s writing a new life chapter.
Carole King's songs have been the soundtrack of our lives. One of the songwriter's first biggies, "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?", dramatized every girl's "should I or shouldn't I?" dilemma. "One Fine Day," so cheeky, captured the optimism of a girl in love who knew her turn would come (or at least she kept telling herself it would). And "You've Got a Friend" became an anthem for a whole generation of feminist women. Now, according to Politico, Carole King has "an additional career" and a new set of friends: environmental activists. An Idaho resident, she is working with the Alliance for the Wild Rockies , fighting to protect wildlife and to turn roadless areas of the West into protected federal wildernesses. King's contribution? "I had a name that would open doors." Yet despite her celebrity, the battle for effective environmental legislation is not yet won and the goal must often seem "So Far Away." Of her years spent working with legislators in Washington D.C., she says, "I've seen how sausage was made, and it's not pretty." What's really inspiring is that while the challenge she and her group have taken on is a tough one (creating one federal protected area out of land in five different states), she hasn't walked away just because there's no quick fix. At age 67 (umm...how did that happen??), she not only has her big name to work with, she also has the virtues of maturity, the ones that (unlike her celebrity) all of us who grew up on her songs can share. Like patience. And doggedness. Being in it for the long haul. And maybe a sense that we're the grownups now and this is a job we simply have to do. And as always, Carole's got the soundtrack for us: "(Something tells me) I'm Into Something Good." (If you're into something good yourself, please scroll down and tell us about your cause and what you've done to help.)
