Category: Songs

“Mildred’s House of Values”

LOCATION: Jackson ,Mississippi
PERIOD: 1944-2014
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Mildred Motts Hooper (1944-2014); Leon Hooper (1933-1975); Levi Hooper (1973)

Mildred Motts Hooper was born in Tallulah, Louisiana in 1944, the half sister of Molly Motts Raney. Mildred married Leon Hooper and had one son, Levi Hooper.

Mildred liked to cook and crochet and was happy as a homemaker.  One of her favorite dishes to prepare was baked cheese grits which she would serve with breaded pork chops and homemade rolls.

She and Leon were married in 1963 shortly before Leon was shipped off to Vietnam.  When Leon returned from his tour of service they settled down in Jackson, Mississippi where Leon worked as a welder and they raised their only son, Levi, who was born in 1973.

However, Leon only lived another two years, dying in 1975, and Levi had no memories of his father.  To help make ends meet Mildred began to sell items from her home, establishing a thrift store at her residence (see song, “Mildred’s House of Values“).

Mildred passed away in 2014 after suffering a stroke.

MILDRED’S HOUSE OF VALUES
(F.D. Leone, Jr.)

Mildred’s “House of Values,” on a corner lot
A price tag hung from every table and chair
Things for sale like any other shop
But it was Mildred’s home and she still lived there

Her son Levi would come by and do odd jobs
Help his momma with what she needed done
Rustin’ on blocks, a ’68 Dodge
Levi never could get to run

A person does all they can do
Full time job just gettin’ through
Rise in the morning, close your eyes at night
In between, try to get it right

Mildred was widowed nineteen-seventy-five
Leon Hooper was a good man
Price tags went up, year after he died
Life don’ turn out nothin’ like we plan

The ’68 Dodge, last car Leon bought
Rest of his stuff, sittin’ in a shed
You can see in Levi, Leon’s walk
Are the ones we love ever really dead?

A person does all they can do
Full time job just gettin’ through
Rise in the morning, close your eyes at night
In between, try to get it right

Mildred’s “House of Values,” on a corner lot
From every stick of furniture a price tag hung
A ‘68 Dodge rustin’ on blocks
Levi never could get to run

© 2017 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

“Levi and Lucy”

LOCATION: Jackson, Mississippi
PERIOD: 2012-2015
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Levi Hooper (1973); Lucy Bess Cooper (1980-2015)

The romance of Levi Hooper and Lucy Cooper was an unlikely union; absolutely, an attraction of opposites.

They met while living across the street from one another in Jackson, Mississippi.   Lucy was a hell-raising rebel and Levi was a church-going, salt-of-the-earth young man.  Lucy was attracted to Levi mainly because he was nothing like the people she’d been involved with up to then, and Lucy had grown tired of her life and was ripe for a change.

Levi was attracted to Lucy because, well, for one thing, she was a very sexy lady, but more importantly he intuitively felt that she wanted more out of life than her drinking, drugging and wild partying.

Theirs was a true love which they both felt strongly, but a love that was destined to be cut off far too early, its potential left unfulfilled.

LEVY AND LUCY
(F.D. Leone, Jr.)

Lucy Cooper cussed the hammer that struck her thumb
Sent it sailing to kingdom come
Grabbed a whiskey bottle and marched out to her front porch
Found a roach and lit it with a butane torch

Levi Hooper watched from across the street
Wonderin’ how they might come to meet
He strolled out real slow looked in his mailbox
Lucy called out,”hey, hotshot”

Love can’t be controlled
Can’t be foretold
If you can explain it
It ain’ it

Love can’t be fenced
Or convinced
If you can explain it
It ain’ it

Every Sunday Levi would stop by on his way to church
Look at his feet with each of Lucy’s cuss words
Levi hoped she might want to come with him sometime
But he tried to push that thought out of his mind

Lucy had no luck at tryin’ to settle down
Her old friends always kept coming around
Lucy got busted they sent her to the prison farm
Where she put that stuff all up her arm

Love can’t be controlled
Can’t be foretold
If you can explain it
It ain’ it

Love can’t be fenced
Or convinced
If you can explain it
It ain’ it

© 2018 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

“One Time Too Many”

LOCATION: Vicksburg, Mississippi
PERIOD: 1985-2004
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Louanne Murray Bowden (1967); Ronnie Raney (1962-2004)

In a disastrous act of rebellion from her upper crust background, Louanne Bowden began dating and ultimately married Ronnie Raney whom sehe met while attending the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

The Raney family under the leadership of matriarch Molly Motts Raney transitioned from bootlegging moonshine whiskey to distributing marijuana, pills and eventually funding methamphetamine labs. Ronnie was the second oldest son, acting as his mother’s right hand operations manager, his older brother Lonnie was sheriff of Warren County, offering protection for the entire enterprise.

After suffering years of Ronnie drunken abuse, Louanne and finding no relief from the corrupt legal system in Warren County, took matters into her own hands and shot Ronnie with a deer rifle as he sat at the kitchen table eating a slice of her homemade peach pie.

Although she knew she was justified in killing him, she fatalistically accepted her conviction of murder and the twenty year sentence that went with it. Only much later was she vindicated and released for time served.

ONE TIME TOO MANY
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

She’d like to fix up her dinette
Yellow wallpaper with nosegays
A hard wood floor would do the trick
Those stains’ll take more than paint
 
A buzzer spoils this daydream
Lights out and the bars clang shut
It’ll have to wait twenty years
This cell is where she’ll stay put
 
She’d had enough
Taken too much
He treated her rough one time too many
She did the crime
She’ll do the time
Regrets? No, she don’t have any
 
She brought him his beer and a slice of pie
Then shot him with his deer gun
It was worth it just to see him surprised
Once he realized just what she’d done
 
She’d had enough
Taken too much
He treated her rough one time too many
She did the crime
She’ll do the time
Regrets? No, she don’t have any
 
His brother was sheriff of Warren County
There was no doubt the fix was in
A jury of his peers showed no mercy
But if she could she’d do it again
 
She’d had enough
Taken too much
He treated her rough one time too many
She did the crime
She’ll do the time
Regrets? No, she don’t have any

© 2017 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

“When Louanne Met Lucy in Prison”

LOCATION: Mississippi Penitentiary for Women, Rankin County, MIssissippi
PERIOD: 2015
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Lucy Bess Cooper (1980-2015); Louanne Murray Bowden (1967)

Louanne Bowden was sent to the Mississippi Penitentiary for Women after being convicted of murdering her husband, Ronnie Raney (see song, “One Time Too Many“). Prison was an unlikely place for someone of Louanne’s background to end up, but there she was (see song, “Louanne in Vicksburg“). The fact that she killed Ronnie as a result of his constant physical abuse did not mitigate the verdict. Only years later would her case be reviewed and she would be released for time served when the charge was changed from murder to justifiable homicide (see song “A Waxahachie Funeral“).

However, while Louanne was serving her twenty year sentence Lucy Cooper was also sent to this prison on an 18 month sentence for distribution of controlled substance, marijuana. Although Lucy put up a brash and strong front, she was in fact a fragile woman, unable to cope with life behind bars. Shortly before being considered and most likely to be released on parole, a little shy of 12 months into her sentence, Lucy succumbed to depression and killed herself with an heroin overdose (see also song, “Levi and Lucy“).

WHEN LOUANNE MET LUCY IN PRISON
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

When Louanne met Lucy in prison
Lou was halfway through her twenty
For killin’ Ronnie Raney
Who hit her once too many
Lucy would talk all about Levi
In words tender and soft
It was old friends and old sins
Got Lucy caught

Ain’t that how it is sometimes?
Ain’t that how it is sometimes?
You’re on the verge of change
Life sends you the same ol’ same

They gave Lucy eighteen months
Easy time for most but for Lucy hard
Day by day she faded away
Behind stone walls and steel bars
Louanne tried to keep an eye on Lucy
Easy in there to come to harm
August night when they found her
Needle was still in Lucy’s arm

Ain’t that how it is sometimes …

Louanne got word to Levi
Said it best she knew how
Lucy only had six weeks left
She ain’ never gettin’ out
Levi read that letter and then
Put it in his dresser drawer
Got drunk in Vicksburg went a little further
Did a little more

© 2017 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

“Levi After Lucy”

LOCATION: Mississippi: Vicksburg, Greenwood, Greenville
PERIOD: 2015-16
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Levi Hooper (1973); Lucy Cooper (1980-2015)In the aftermath of Lucy

Cooper‘s either accidental overdose or intentional suicide while incarcerated in the Louisiana Prison for Women, Levi Hooper went on something of a bender. Levi was not normally a drinker, but he felt despondent over Lucy’s death and did the only thing he knew how in order to deal with the set of emotions he felt: anger, shock, frustration.

Lucy had not done any drugs or much drinking for weeks prior to being arrested. That arrest was in itself was another case of bad timing: someone she thought was a friend flipped when arrested and gave Lucy up as his dealer (see song, “Levi and Lucy“. The reason Levi did not wish to believe that Lucy had committed suicide was because often when a former user has not done any narcotics for a while, if they relapse at their last dosage, their body cannot tolerate what it once did.

In any event, Lucy had been in the process of turning her life around at the time of her arrest, and her death while serving a relatively short sentence, 18 months, was hard for Levi to take (see songs, “Ready for Change” and “When Louanne Met Lucy in Prison“).

His binge begins in bars around Vicksburg, then he hits the road, to Greenwood, and Greenville, ending up at a small Catholic church in Lake Providence, Louisiana. Levi does not wish to be rude to the priest, he is simply exhausted both mentally and physically, and after this experience, Levi goes back home, devotes himself once again to helping his mother and begin to pick up the pieces of his life.

LEVI AFTER LUCY
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Levi staggered up the stone church steps
A slice of moon hung above a wooden cross
Inside the door he stared at a concrete font
Then walked down the aisle, drunk and lost

He eased himself into a pew and sat
Musty scent of incense hung in the air
Worn leather knee-benches underfoot
Levi tried to find the words of a prayer

Vicksburg, Greenwood, Greenville
Gone down many roads, travelin’ still
Pavement, gravel, then dirt
But what he’s lookin’ for ain’t in this church

His head sank to his chest; he slept
A priest shook him; he struggled to his feet
The priest asked him, “Do I know ye?”
“No,” Levi said. “You don’ know me.”

Vicksburg, Greenwood, Greenville …

“Please, Lord, please keep me still
From sinkin’ lower an’ blowin’ away
I’ll straighten out I swear I will
Least that’s how I feel today”

Priest looked him over and said
“Were you waiting to see me?”
Woman was dustin’ the altar with a rag
“No, sir, I just fell asleep.”

Vicksburg, Greenwood, Greenville …

© 2018 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

“A Waxahachie Funeral”

LOCATION: Whitfield MIssissippi; Waxahachie, Texas
PERIOD: 2015
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Louanne Murray Bowden (1967); Constance Maddox Haynes (1913-2015, 102); Helen Haynes Murray (1947)

While at CMCF, Louanne developed an exemplary record of good behavior including mentoring several other young female prisoners. For example, about half way through her sentence, a young woman, Lucy Cooper, was sent to CMCF on a drug charge, given eighteen months. Lucy was a funny, bright, and street smart but fragile woman who simply could not do the time for her crime. Despite being taken under Louanne’s wing, Lucy became increasingly more and more despondent, eventually suiciding from an overdose – within weeks of her release (see song, “When Louanne Met Lucy in Prison“).

Not long after this tragedy Louanne’s case was reviewed by a judge who ruled that hers was a case of justified homicide and her sentence was commuted to time served. These events coincided with the death of her grandmother in 2015, when she was released after serving about 60% of her original sentence. She returned to Texas for her grandmother’s funeral and remained there with her mother, to live once again in Highland Park, however, now in somewhat reduced grandeur.

A Waxahachie Funeral
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

A call from that charity lawyer,
Words like “justifiable homicide”.
She heard him say the phrase “time served”;
Then a thirty hour Greyhound ride.
Twelve years in, Louanne walked out of prison;
In a blue dress and a brand new pair of shoes.
Destination: a Waxahachie funeral;
Her grandma dead at a hunderd ‘n’ two.

Standin’ with her people among weathered stones;
Stiff new shoes powdered with red dirt.
Back home to witness a tough ol’ Texas woman,
Laid into a plot of Texas earth.

Her daddy died five years before;
That was a funeral Louanne had to miss.
It’s just her and her Neiman Marcus mother,
Left behind to make some sense of this.
They climb inside a shiny black Lincoln;
Go back to that big old empty house.
Their polite Highland Park friends,
Don’t know how to talk to her now.

Standin’ with her people among weathered stones;
Stiff new shoes powdered with red dirt.
Back home to witness a tough ol’ Texas woman,
Laid into a plot of Texas earth.

Louanne and momma sit in the kitchen;
Mute and surrounded by their ghosts.
They stare across a walnut table;
A cup of coffee and a slice of melba toast.
Louanne remembers another August;
That magic summer when she turned eighteen.
When her life seemed so full of promise;
Magnolias and September dreams.

Standin’ with her people among weathered stones;
Stiff new shoes powdered with red dirt.
Back home to witness a tough ol’ Texas woman,
Laid into a plot of Texas earth.

© 2018 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

“McLemore’s”

Jake McLemore’s father, Charlie McLemore, was small businessman at the J.M. Guffey Petroleum Company of Oil City, Louisiana where Jake was born in 1959 and where he spent his early life. Charlie moved the family to Shreveport in 1968 after he got a job at United Gas Corporation. Shreveport would be Jake’s home until he graduated high school, and went to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Jake decided to stay in Nashville after graduating from Vandy with a degree in Business Administration. After investing in several businesses, he came to own a bar, which he had won in a poker game. He promptly changed the name and settled down as proprietor of McLemore’s Bar in 1985 (see song, “McLemore’s“).

By that time Jake had already married and had a son, Lee, in 1983. But Jake’s happiness and home were shattered when his wife, Amelia, was killed in a car accident when a drunk driver ran a red light, leaving Jake to raise his son alone. Soon after graduating from high school, Lee McLemore enlisted in the army and was deployed to Iraq.

But before he left for Iraq, in July 2003, Lee’s girlfriend Ellen Brewer gave birth to a son whom they named Charles after his grandfather Charlie McLemore. Lee and Ellen secretly married shortly before Lee shipped out for Iraq that December. Jake knew nothing of this son and lost touch with Ellen Brewer. It was only much later that, largely out of curiosity, Charles looked Jake up and established contact.

On March 31, 2004, five U.S. soldiers were killed by a large IED on a road a few miles outside of Fallujah, one of the soldiers who died that day was Lee McLemore.

Jake kept the bar going for several years after Lee died but ended up selling it in 2007 and bought some land outside of Shreveport, Louisiana not far from Oil City. He had fond memories of fishing on Caddo Lake with his father and settled into that kind of life again.

It didn’t take long for Jake to become bored with retirement, and he bought a diner in Shreveport where Pearl Robison happened to enter one day in January 2010 (see song, “Pearl + Jake“). For five years Jake and Pearl had a turbulent romantic relationship, before Pearl took to the road again (see song “Hit the Road“), heading west on U.S. 80, leaving Jake heart broken at 56 (see songs, “The River and Jake” and “The Red River Flows“).

Unbeknownst to him Pearl was pregnant when she left, and gave birth to a daughter, Sadie Jo Robison. Pearl initially had no intention of letting Jake know about this child, but she eventually did tell Jake (see song “Terrell“), however, nearly two years after she had left Shreveport. Jake immediately proposed to Pearl, and they got married and moved back to Shreveport to raise Sadie Jo together.

Jake hired someone to run the diner and went back to a life of fishing and shooting the breeze with his friend Mike Broussard and other men from the area. Then one day in 2016 his grandson, Charles, walked into his life.

Jake is currently living with Pearl and Sadie Jo outside Shreveport, Louisiana, and maintaining a close relationship with Charles, helping him to grow into a sturdy young man in the long line of McLemore men.

McLemore’s
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Walked in there first time in aught-four
Took a stool by the pinball machine
Come to know the owner Jake McLemore
Dropping by each day became routine

He looked to be about my dad’s age
If my dad ain’t died in ninety-three
Jake was always adopting things
Like a three-legged dog and me

Time seemed to pass a little slower
Behind soft country music and bumper pool
The world looked a whole lot better
From where I sat on that bar stool

Pickled eggs and pigs feet in a jar
Antique cash register, black dial phone
Scratches an’ nicks in a hickory bar
Left by those who are never really gone

He pointed to a snapshot of some soldiers
Leaning on a tank in Iraq
“They call my son a hero,” Jake told me
“Would’ve preferred if he’d just made it back.”

Time seemed to pass a little slower
Behind soft country music and bumper pool
The world looked a whole lot better
From where I sat on that bar stool

Jake sold out last year with a big payday
Bought 26 acres outside Shreveport
I don’t drink much anymore and anyway
Can’t find a bar like McLemore’s
No, there ain’t no place like McLemore’s

© 2017 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Related songs in chronological order:
McLemore’s
Between Here and Gone
Pearl and Jake
Hit the Road
The River and Jake
Terrell
The Red River Flows
Sadie Jo