Let’s return to a time of innocence.

The 1969/70 school year began shortly after the moon landing and Woodstock, two monumental events which showed humanity (and America) at its best. Granted, the US still found itself mired in Vietnam, city streets continued to see riots, and the Cold War was still frosty as ever, but let’s face it, it wasn’t the 21st century — there was still plenty of room for innocence and hope.

Rita Abrams taught school in Boston for a couple of years before leaving the New England chill and driving her VW bus all the way across the country to Mill Valley, California during that golden summer of ’69. Mill Valley sits between Richardson Bay and Mount Tamalpais, a stone’s throw from the Muir Woods National Monument, and just a 20 minute drive north from San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge. In other words, a pretty glorious environment if you’re into the awesome wonder of Mother Nature.

Abrams managed to get a job teaching kindergarten at the Strawberry Point School and found herself so happy and inspired by her new surroundings that she wrote a simple song to sing along with the kids about their hometown. Shortly afterwards, she attended one of those laid back California parties of the time where anyone might show up, and someone pointed out record producer Erik Jacobsen (best known for producing all of The Lovin’ Spoonful’s hits and hot off of working on “Spirit In The Sky” with Norman Greenbaum and this guy). Coincidentally, the only three records Abrams owned were all produced by Jacobsen. A couple of weeks later, spotting him on the dock where he kept his houseboat, she walked up and told Jacobsen about her children’s song and he asked her to send him a demo.

Abrams quickly recorded the demo for “Mill Valley” with her teaching assistant, Tommy Heath, playing guitar (you may know him better as the future lead singer of Tommy Tutone, who hit big a decade later with this song — there are all kinds of connections in this story). Jacobsen loved the song and brought equipment and musicians to record a version in the classroom with Abrams and her kindergarteners. Unfortunately, the hit-making producer deemed the resulting tapes unusable due to the off-key screeching of the tiny tots. Ouch.

The news left Abrams devastated and she figured her chance was over, but Jacobsen really loved the song. He suggested they try it again with 3rd graders and move into a professional studio. Listening to the final playback, Jacobsen felt tears welling up — the only time a song had ever done that to him.

Released as a single in June of 1970, “Mill Valley” peaked at #90 on the US Hot 100, not a huge seller but a big favorite of radio DJs that summer, capturing an easygoing, sunny sweetness that avoided crossing the line into saccharine. LIFE magazine ended up writing a brief feature about Miss Abrams and the kids, and Rolling Stone sent world-class photographer Annie Leibowitz to capture images for their own article.

Rita Abrams bought a house in Mill Valley shortly after her success and spent the next 50 years living in the town she loved and immortalized in song, before finally packing up and saying goodbye due to the absurdly high cost of living (same reason I had to leave California). The last line of the song even asks, “How could I leave Mill Valley? That’s my home!” But alas, no innocence can last forever. 50 years is a pretty good run, though.

On July 4th, 1970, a young filmmaker named Francis Ford Coppola shot a promo video at the Mill Valley town celebration. Erik Jacobsen knew him from a couple of years before when The Lovin’ Spoonful provided the music for Coppola’s film You’re A Big Boy Now. (I believe I might have seen a longer version in better quality at some point, but if so it’s not available now).

[This post was supposed to go out on Saturday, but I accidentally posted a 98% finished version this morning before noticing my mistake and then posting about “Golden Brown,” the correct song. Unfortunately, once it gets posted, there’s no way to retract the emails that go out to my subscribers, so y’all got an early–and possibly confusing–peek. No sense in waiting until Saturday now. I finished up the last 2% and here it is again! Next post on Wednesday.]