Tag: Bowden family

“The Burden Family Blues”

LOCATION: Northern Ireland; Virginia; Boston; New York City; Tennessee; Marengo County, Mississippi; Dallas, Texas.
PERIOD: 1617-1978
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Owen Tucker “Tick” Burden (1937-2019); Albert Burden (1910-1978); Joseph Charles Burden (1848-1910); Alan Edward Burden (1850-1916); Owen Burden (1879-1954); Henry Baxter (Burden) “Bowden” (1829-1883); Charles Joseph Burden (1825-1896); Edward Burden (1802-1859); Charles Owen Burden (1776-1861); Albert Peter Burden (1737-1798); Betty Akins (Burden) (1759-1822); Peter Albert Burden (1682-1749);  Edmund Owen Burden (1639-1714); Samuel Peter Burden (1617-1656)

Tick Burden wakes up in jail after a DUI which occurred on December 15, 1978. The rest of the story regresses (in 40 year spans) back to the 17th century when the first Burden ancestor emigrated from Northern Ireland to America:

Samuel Peter Burden (1617-1656) grows up with his father who had joined a sailing mission with Sir Walter Raleigh in 1618.  Sam leaves northern Ireland in 1635 sailing to American.  Landing in Virginia it wasn’t long before he met and married a young Scottish girl. They have a son, Edmund Owen Burden (1639-1714) in 1639, who is the first American born Burden ancestor.

Edmund Owen Burden (1639-1714) moved with his family to the Boston area, and as a young man he happened to be in town when the Quaker evnagelist Mary Dyer was being hanged.  At that time, despite the Puritans leaving England due to religious persecution, they themselves were intolerant of Quakerism, which was outlawed at the time.  Mary Dyer was arrested, convicted of violating the ban on Quakerism, and hanged either onMay 31st or June 1st in 1658.

Peter Albert Burden (1682-1749) the next Burden in the line ran off from Boston to New York hoping to be taken on a sialing ship, looking for adventure.  He managed to get hired on the Adventure Galley, William Kidd’s ship headed for Africa.  Kidd saw that the pirates he was attempting to police were taking home more ricches than he was, and he decided to turn traitor against the King and became a notrious pirate himself.  eventually he was hanged for his crimes.  By that time Peter had abandoned his dsailing ambitions and remained on dry land for the rest of his life.

Albert Peter Burden (1737-1798) is caught up in the fervor of rebellion from England at the time of Founding Fathers.  When he is in his late ’30s he joins up the militia and serves under several generals.  In 1778 his division is under general command of George Washing in New Jersey. The battle of Monmouth, also known as the Battle of Monmouth Court House, was fought near Monmouth Court House in modern-day Freehold Borough, New Jersey, on June 28, 1778, during the American Revolutionary War. After the battle, an American victory, Albert takes a few minutes and writes a letter home.

Henry Baxter (Burden) “Bowden” (1829-1883) does not agree with the rest of his family on the question of slavery.  As a consequence he changes his last name from Burden to Bowden and identifies as an abolitionist. He eventually joins up to fight on the Union side, potentially against his own brothers.  Henry loses an arm at Gettysburg, ending his military career, and settling down in Texas.

Joseph Charles Burden (1848-1910); Alan Edward Burden (1850-1916); Owen Burden (1879-1954) Owen Burden, son of Alan, and nephew of Joe, volunteers and fights in teh Apanish-American War of 1898.  While his father and uncle are making whiskey, they discuss the logic of Owen’s decision to go to war in a cause they don’t entirely understand.

Albert Burden (1910-1978) is in Texas and happens into a saloon on the night of the championship boxing match between Max Schmeling and Joe Louis. They were to fight twice, Schmeling winning the first in 1936 and losing the second in 1938. The two fights came to embody the broader political and social conflict of the time. As the most significant African American athlete of his age and the most successful black fighter since Jack Johnson, Louis was a focal point for African American interest in the 1930s. Moreover, as a contest between representatives of the United States and Nazi Germany during the 1930s, the fights came to symbolize the struggle between democracy and fascism.

Louis and Schmeling developed a friendship outside the ring, which endured until Louis’ death on April 12, 1981.  Schmeling reportedly covered a part of the costs of Louis’ funeral, at which he was a pallbearer. Schmeling died 24 years later on February 2, 2005, at the age of 99. Both Louis and Schmeling are members of the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

This bring us up to 1978 when Albert dies at the same time Tick, his son, is sitting in a Dallas jail cell after his DUI.

THE BURDEN FAMILY BLUES
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Face down on a cold concrete floor;
Tick Burden inhales ammonia and vomit.
Coming to in a Dallas county jail cell;
Pats his pockets for keys and wallet.
“Burden: get up, you made bail.”
His brother-in-law hands him a six-pack.
“I need to get my truck out of impound?”
“Your pa’s dead; Allie said to bring you back.”

A slender cheroot clamped in his jaw,
Albert Burden crossed to the bar.
Took a handful of silver dollars
Spread them out in the shape of a star.
The big fight was on the radio,
June, 1938, a title bout.
“Max shoulda retired; he’s old and  slow.”
“Th’ young buck’s gonna lay a beatin’ on the Kraut.”

“Why’d Owen go an’ fight with Yankees?”
“Aw, Alan, y’know, do his bit.
Anyway there ain’t no more blue and gray,
We’re just Americans, and all that shit.”
July 1898, making Missipy moonshine;
Hardly moving, hardly talking, they just sat.
“Joe, where’n the hell is Cuba anyway?”
Joe shook the jar, turned, and spat.

Henry changed his name to Bowden from Burden,
Because he was an abolitionist.
1858 he heard Lincoln and Douglas;
For the Union side he would enlist.
His father Edward and his brother Charles,
Would forever curse his fake name.
Henry Bowden lost an arn at Gettysburg;
“A Burden ball got ‘im,” his father liked to claim.

“1778, June, Monmouth:
Dear Betty, the Redcoats have faded back.
I was with Greene, our cannons were jumping;
We held our line against each British attack.
Must admit I was scared half to death,
And prayed for my return to you and Charles.
I’m proud to have served with such men;
General Washington handed out cigars.”

Peter Burden ran off to New York,
Looking to join the crew of a sailing ship.
William Kidd took him on the Adventure Galley;
They sailed to Africa on his first trip.
1698 Kidd stood for King and country,
But switched sides to a pirate life of crime.
1701 he had a rope around his neck;
Peter kept to dry land till the day he died.

1658 Mary Dyer came to Boston,
To preach the Quaker faith.
She was arrested in New Haven,
Hanged the 31st of May.
Edmund Burden was among the onlookers,
Swore he’d no more be a Christian.
If Puritans could murder a Quaker,
Then to all preaching he would not listen.

1617 Samuel Burden was born;
The next year his father sailed with Walter Raleigh.
Never to be heard from again;
Samuel Peter Burden grew up without a daddy.
1635 he sailed to America,
Settled in Virginia, and wed a Socttish girl.
They had a son in 1639;
The first Burden born in the New World.

© 2025 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.

“Sally & Tater Sell the Candlelite”

Owen Tucker “Tick” Burden (1937-2019) abandoned his common law wife, Alma Tate (1940-1978), as soon as he heard that she was pregnant and did not return for going on twenty years, ten years after Alma had died. His son, Tucker Tate Burden (1968), Tick and Alma’s son, was then about 20 and working as a bartender in his grandmama’s tavern, the Candlelite Inn. The boy’s mother, called him Tucker but his father called him Tate, or affectionately, Tater. The boy preferred Tuck.

As soon as Tick Burden showed back up at the Candlelite, as was his nature began acting like some kind of boss, so Tuck, something of a chip off the old block, decided to do a runner, much like his father had done twenty years previous. And he too did not return from nearly twenty years which by that time, his grandmama was dead and Tick had been running the Candlelite all that time.

Tick’s long time waitress, Sally Ann Kirk (1972), and the sweetheart of all the male patrons of the Candlelite, always dreamed of inheriting the bar from Tick as some point, so she stuck around all that time. However, she and Tick had never been anything other than friends, Tick acting as a kind of stand-in father figure.

When Tucker came back, one night after drinking about half a bottle of whiskey, he decided to burn down the Candlelite. He didn’t much care if he burned up his father either. But just about when he was going to light the fire, Sally came out and they stood face to face, and that was all it took for them to feel they were destined for each other.

Tater and Sally fell into each others arms, began living as if they were married, and had two kids. Sally’s long time dream finally came true when Tick died in 2019, and she and Tater took over the bar. They went ahead and legalized their union, sold the Candlelite soon after and bought a nice house in Abilene, Texas – about 160 miles west, further down Highway 80 – where they raised their two children: Owen Edgar Burden (2009) and Ann Burden (2011), and grew old together.

LOCATION: Arlington, Texas; Abilene, Texas.
PERIOD: 2008-2019
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Tucker Tate Burden (1968); Sally Ann Kirk (1972); Owen Tucker “Tick” Burden (1937-2019), Alma Tate (1940-1978).

SALLY & TATER SELL THE CANDLELITE
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Summer air thick as molasses;
Moon hanging’ low around midnight.
Bottle of whiskey, box of matches,
Tater crept up to the Candelite.
Sally Kirk, a cute little thing;
The men all say she still looks alright.
Twenty years she held on to a dream;
While waiting tables at the Candlelite.

Tick Burden often talks about his past;
About his life, the ups and downs.
When he spoke of his son Sally asked,
“How come Tater don’t come around?”
Tick was sitting alone at the bar,
Going over that night’s receipts.
Outside there’s a passing car;
A soft rain falls on empty streets.

Tate  poured the whiskey along the black wall,
Burning down the bar was the plan.
Threw the bottle like he throwed a football;
Cursed the match that bit his hand.
That same night, pretty late,
Sally was bringing out the trash.
She came face to face with Tate;
He froze, holding a lit match.

Neon shadows in the parking lot;
Iridescent puddles pink, green, and blue.
Tater cursed and let the match drop,
“Tick talked about a son, is that you?”
Ten more years the Candlelite was well lit,
Till Tick Burden died in 2019.
Sally and Tate decided to sell it,
Buy a big house in Abilene.

© 2024 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.

“Henrietta, Alma, and Tucker”

In the wake of being abandoned, pregnant, by her lover Tick Burden, Alma Tate begins the hard road of her life. Struggling with being dominated by an overbearing and judgmental mother, Henrietta Tate, who could not help but make Alam feel like a failure in her choice of a father for her child, Alma’s life becomes one of working menial jobs in her mother’s bar/restaurant and drinking.

Tucker Tate is born without a father and the only information he gets is what he is told mostly by his grandmother, which does not paint a positive image of the man who contributed to his existence. Nevertheless, Tucker begins to grow up reasonably happy until he is confronted with his mother’s accidental suicide when he is ten years old.

As soon as Tucker is old enough his grandmother puts him to work in the bar, serving drinks to a regular cohort of local characters and drunks until one day his father returns andimmediately begins to order him around.

Tick Burden is unrepentant, and belligerent, which brings Tucker to the moment he chooses to escape this growing hellish life. This throws the two protaganists, Henrietta and Tick, (ironically the two poles of oppression and disappointment in both Alma’s and Tuckers lives) into business together at the Candlelite Inn.

Tick takes over the day-to-day management of the business while Henrietta retreats into the past and dementia until finally passing away at 86.

LOCATION: Dallas, Texas
PERIOD: 1968-2008
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Alma Tate (1940-1978); Tucker Tate (1968); Tick Burden (1937-2019); Henrietta Tate (1922-2008).

HENRIETTA, ALMA, AND TUCKER
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

It was 4pm on a Wednesday afternoon,
When Alma realized that Tick was gone.
She walked in a daze from room to room;
Then sat down with the fact she was alone.
She hated that her mama had been right,
And waited for the told-you-so.
The seed Tick had planted that fateful night,
Was the one good thing he did before he’d go.

The violent night Tucker was born,
Outside strong wind and thunder.
Between pangs of labor and the storm,
Alma looked around with childlike wonder.
Then, a hunger.

The rain had stopped, the sky was gray,
The moon was a ghost.
Alma felt herself slowly fading away;
Poured a drink and tossed it down her throat.
Tucker Tate grew up to be a man;
Never knew his father just what he was told.
Not much by his mother mostly from his gran;
He was the issue of a broken mold.

Tucker tended bar in his grandma’s place,
He was setting up to an almost empty room.
A man with a worn but familiar face,
Swaggered into the dark saloon.
Tucker met his father that afternoon.

Late September rain on the roof,
The Candlelite Inn on Highway 80.
Tick Burden hollered from a corner booth;
“Boy, bring a drink to your daddy.”
Tucker Tate disappeared that night,
Grabbed a eastbound freight and was gone.
His grandma stared out the backdoor of the Candlelite,
At her daughter Alma’s gravestone.

Alma had succumbed to drink and depression,
Ten years ago that June.
She’d finally run out of any reason;
And laid down her mop and broom,
A last breath alone, in her room.

Henrietta held on and persevered,
With Tick’s help, the bar stayed open
He ran the Candlelite for the next 20 years;
While Henrietta grew old and broken.
She obsessed over habit and routine,
Against her will, her mind rebelled.
Spent her time with mem’ries and things unseen,
Nothing else really mattered at all.

Old age had freed her from conceit,
And desires of the flesh.
With some reluctance, almost deceit,
She watched her scrapbook flare into ash;
It all ended with a flash.

© 2024 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.

“Tick Burden’s Dream”

Tucker “Tick” Burden (1937-2019) came from an old Texas family, of Scottish descent. The patriarch Charles Owen Burden (1776-1834) came to America in 1800 at the age of 24, at a time of high confidence after defeating the great British Empire. His son, Edward Burden (1802-1836), produced Tick’s great-great-grandfather who retained the name whereas his brother, Henry Baxter Bowden (1829-1863), altered it to Bowden so that he would avoid the obvious negative association with the name Burden.

This created a schism among the family with the Burdens (the smaller branch) hardly socializing with the Bowdens.

Tick grew up in relative comfort, his father Albert Burden (1910-1986) having had a successful career as a cattle agent, not raising them himself but arranging auctions and large stock sales in North Central Texas.

However, from an early age, Tick was a dreamer and ne’er-do-well. As soon as he could Tick ran off, working only when he had to at various menial jobs: day laborer, miner, even an itinerant gambler for a short while. He enlisted in the army to avoid criminal charges but then deserted four months later.

He went north and got involved with a bootlegger, learning how to distill moonshine in the process, which came in handy. However, he missed Texas and made his way back south, getting a job in a tavern outside of Dallas on Highway 80.

The owner, Henrietta Tate (1916-2008), was a widow woman with a daughter, Alma Tate (1940-1978), a few years younger than Tick, who was around 30 by this time. Tick must have appeared dashing to the young and inexperienced girl who fell for him, and gave herself to him, getting herself pregnant. As soon as Tick heard the girl’s naive romantic dreams of running off, he did what he always did when he found himself facing consequences he would rather not, run.

Tick’s story is told in two parts, the second half of the song tells in straight-forward fashion Tick’s life up to the point of him abandoning Alma. The first half describes Tick on the road (presumably after he runs from the Tates), experiencing some cryptic dreams and ending up at a cemetery, either physically at Alma’s grave or dreaming he was.

LOCATION: Texas; Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois
PERIOD: 1950s-1980s
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Tucker “Tick” Burden (1937-2019); Henrietta Tate (1916-2008); Alma Tate (1940-1978).

TICK BURDEN’S DREAM
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

My name is Tick Burden, got a hobo soul;
Cutting’ and running has taken a toll.
One did love me, but I chose a train to ride;
Been ten years since that one died.

Grey moon above me, skirted by a cloud;
I trudge through the’ mist, and overgrown ground.
Come to a bridge, crawl underneath;
A storm gathers darkly; I go to sleep.

Seven gray sisters, all in a row;
Whisper foreign words, I do not know.
When I awake the rain has stopped;
The air is electric, humid and hot.

Thunder shakes the ground, lightning zigzags;
On my tongue I can taste something like brass.
Seven grey sisters, all dressed in blue;
The dream nags at me like a pebble in my shoe.

I’m standing at a grave, among ancient headstones,
Praying for forgiveness from one who is gone.
The living carry death, until the final surrender;
The void is not a curse, the dead do not remember.

Toppled markers look like melted candle wax;
I sit bolt upright as a tree limb snaps.
Somewhere in the dark, a banjo and fiddle;
Haunted midnight music, the hour of the devil.

I look up the slope to a wet yellow sedge,
And see a grove where went I can lay my head.
I dream of a black snake coiled at my feet;
Three eggs in its belly; my journey’s almost complete.

The seven blue sisters appear to glow,
Phantoms dancing like ghoulish scarecrows;
Chanting strange curses with crooked fingers raised,
They mock me with their laughter; I run from this place.

He ran to Oklahoma and then Missouri,
Crossed to Illinois on a Mississippi ferry.
A bootlegger in Chicago and Detroit;
Sold moonshine whiskey in a Negro juke joint.

A gambler, prospector, hired out on day labor;
Enlisted in the army; deserted four months later.
Lived on cheap food, endless coffee, and cigarettes;
His clothes smelled of whiskey, tobacco, and sweat.

Late summer sun, August turns to September,
Cooling days fade like coal fire embers.
A job at a tavern out on old Highway 80,
Run by a widow, a Dallas Jew lady.

That’s when he met Henrietta and Alma Tate;
The violent summer of 1968.
Alma was the daughter, an only child, like he;
She left scented notes in the hollow of a tree.

His idea of love came from a magazine;
Alma’s eyes followed him, but he had never seen.
One night she gave herself for him to cherish;
Then spoke suddenly and wildly of marriage.

She pleaded that they could run off together;
Dreamed of a life far away from her mother;
Spoke of the child in her belly and there placed his hand;
A cold fear gripped him; and so, Tick Burden ran.

The grade crested where the northbound freights slowed,
To a crawling gait so that a man could grab ahold.
Tick reached for a boxcar and held the ladder fast;
In an icy rain the gray sisters stood as he passed.

His name was Tick Burden, a vagabond;
Seen most of this country and places beyond.
Slept uncertain under willow and pin oak,
Came and went like autumn woodsmoke.

© 2024 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.

“Getting Sober in Dallas”

Louanne Bowden came from an old money section of Dallas. Her family was one of a couple of dozen Texas people whose history in Texas go back before statehood. The Bowden money originally came from cattle, but then oil, her father was an executive in the petroleum industry, and Louanne grew up in comfort. Louanne’s rebellion took the form of a bad marriage to Ronnie Raney, whom she met while at Ole Miss.

Ronnie Raney would show up at football games with a few gallons of moonshine whiskey, which his family sold all around Mississippi. He’d fill pint bottles for the college boys, $5 each; and usually sold out before the game was over.

Ronnie Raney was no good, and would often drink and when Louanne would say something that got him riled up, he’d hit her. Still she left school and followed him to Vicksburg where they rented a shotgun house.

One evening, she’d finally had enough of his drinking and violence, and shot him dead. She never denied it, and was convicted and sent to prison, sentenced to 20 years. However, after serving 12, a judge commuted her sentence to time served, ruling what she’d done was justified homicide. The catalyst to this decision was the death of Louanne’s grandmother, and because of the time of the season, and this particular judge feeling generous allowed mercy to inform the better part of his judgment.


She came back home when her grandmother died, but couldn’t fit back in the society of Highland Park, and began drinking pretty heavily.

Charlie Bennett was four years older than Louanne, and had gone to the same high school. He was a star football player and went to University of Texas on a full athletic scholarship. However during his third game, he suffered a career ending knee injury. It was at this point that Charlie began partying, drinking, and in general drowning his frustration and grief over his lost football future, and performed poorly at school. However, he managed to graduate with a business administration degree, and ended up in Dallas, as a former high school star, selling cars at one of the larger Chevrolet dealerships.

He married his high school girlfriend, and they promptly had two children, two boys two years apart. Although Charlie was fairly successful as a car salesman, his drinking only got worse, leading finally to tragic results. One day, he was supposed to pick up his sons at school. Charlie was in no condition to drive, and after picking up the boys, crossed the double line, and plowing into a moving truck going 60 mph.


Charlie emerged from the accident with minor injuries, however the boys were seriously injured, the youngest one dying from his injuries. This effectively ended his marriage, and sent Charlie to prison. After serving five years he was ready when an old high school friend suggested that Charlie accompany him to an A.A. meeting.

LOCATION: Dallas, Texas
PERIOD: 2005-2016
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Louanne Bowden Raney (1967); Rita Daley (1962); Charles Bennett (1963); Ronnie Raney (1962-2001)

GETTING SOBER IN DALLAS
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

(2015)
Springtime in Highland Park,
The scent of new mown grass.
Every night Louanne comes home drunk;
Her mama’s been on her ass.
“Rita, bourbon rocks, splash of water.”
“Louanne, I done made last call.”
“You do know I been to prison for murder.”
“Hon, you’ve had enough, that’s all.”

Louanne unsteady as she arose
“Girl, tomorrow I’ll get my tab.”
“You sure you can make it home alone?
Why not let me call you a cab?”
“Naw, I’ll get her home, just gimme a minute.”
Louanne turned an’ snarled, “who the hell are you?”
“Lu, hon, you know Charlie; Charlie Bennett.”
“Yeah, okay, Charlie – Charlie who?”

(2005)
Lush green lawns turn to brown;
No rain for weeks, 100 plus degrees.
Ten months back, Charles was let out;
He’s in sweating in bed, alone with his disease.
Thinking about his glory days,
Football star; high school fame.
Texas gave him a full ride to play;
Blew his knee out his third game.

He married his high school sweetheart,
They had two sons in three years.
You can find him every night in a bar,
Replaying each touchdown and how they cheered.
He don’t remember the wreck;
Just his youngest son did not survive.
His marriage ended before his five year stretch;
He’s picking up the pieces of a broken life.

(2015)
The week before Halloween,
Louanne poured her whiskey down the drain.
The day after Thanksgiving,
She picked up a chip for 30 days.
She had found a nearby meeting,
Highland Park Presbyterian.
Louanne hears herself start talking,
“I’m a drunk, my name’s Louanne.”

“Ronnie would drink and then beat me;
For some years I let him.
Then one night I got th’ gun while he was eatin’,
I shot him; should’ve just left him.”
“Spent 12 years in a Mississippi prison,
Til some judge decided to let me go.
Said what I done was within reason;
My grandma’s funeral brought me home.”

(2016)
January morning, cold and raining,
Slowly turning to sleet.
The peace is shattered by a tree limb breakin’;
Louanne hears it from across the street.
Used to be Louanne would sit on the porch,
With a bottle of booze and a stick of pot.
Now the dawn sounds reinforce,
For Louanne the presence of God.

In a booth across from each other;
Louanne and Charlie sit face to face.
Charles has five years sober,
Louanne’s coming up on 90 days.
Two lives intersect,
According to some hidden plan;
Living one day at a time, not the next;
Sober in Dallas, Charlie and Louanne.

© 2024 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.

The Story of Lucy Cooper, Levi Hooper and Louanne Bowden

Mildred’s House of Values
(F.D. Leone, Jr.)

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, and passed away in 2014 at the age of 69 just before her 70th birthday.

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,” 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 …

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
(F.D. Leone, Jr.)

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.

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

© 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.

Louanne in Vicksburg
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Louanne Murphy Bowden (1967- ) comes from an old Texas family, descendants of Thomas Bowden (1802-1836), one of The Old Three Hundred and the first Bowden to live in Texas. The Bowdens became quite wealthy during the first decade of the 20th century when Louanne’s great-great-grandfather, Jonus Caldwell Bowden (1860-1914), struck oil on his ranch, before dying of a stroke. The ranch and oil wells went to his son, James Neal Bowden (1889-1961), who proved himself more than a competent steward of the family’s burgeoning wealth.

By the time Louanne was born the family had been living for decades in Dallas, the “old-money” part of town, Highland Park. As was true for many kids who grew up during the Seventies, of privilege, Louanne’s idea of rebellion centered upon hanging out with kids from “the wrong side of the tracks”, and in general, frustrating her parents’ ideas about whom she ought to date, i.e. a nice boy from the club. When it came time for Louanne to go off to college, she chose the University of Mississippi in Oxford because she had heard from some friends in Baton Rouge that it was an even bigger party school than LSU (see song, “Louanne in Vicksburg“).

In her first semester at Ol’ Miss, Louanne met a good-looking fellow, Ronnie Raney, who definitely was not a boy from the club, and not even enrolled at the university. His main preoccupation appeared to be selling quality weed to fraternity boys. One thing led to another and soon Louanne and Ronnie began dating, ending up with Louanne unofficially dropping out of school and moving to Vicksburg with him.

Louanne did not fully appreciate what she was getting into, since unbeknownst to her, Ronnie’s little pot business was only the tip of the criminal iceberg run by Ronnie’s mother, Molly Raney. The Raney family led by Molly had a strong hold on the political and judicial levers of power in Warren County, and in fact, exerted influence and received protection from prosecution from Natchez to Memphis.

For a while Louanne partnered with Ronnie in the marijuana distribution enterprise, but her main occupation was managing the bar owned by the Raney family. However, after few years, even getting married to Ronnie, she got tired of Ronnie’s habit of becoming violent when he’d had too much to drink, which was often. She finally found the nerve to shoot him while he sat at their dinner table eating a slice of chess pie with a beer (see song, “One Time Too Many“).

She did not even attempt to flee the jurisdiction nor avoid prosecution for this crime. She was well aware that Ronnie’s older brother, Lonnie, sheriff of the county, would make sure that her justifiable homicide defense at trial would not convince the jury. In short order Louanne was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to twenty years to be served at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.

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 (see song, “A Waxahachie Funeral“).

Louanne came from Dallas money
A mansion in Highland Park
Brought julips to her daddy on the veranda
While fireflies flickered in the dark
A summer of magnolia ‘n’ mimosa
Sweet perfume on the heavy August air
Louanne left for college, Oxford Mi’sippy
Ronnie Raney was what she’d find there

When you don’t hear what momma says
And don’t think daddy knows best
If nothin’ is all they’re owed
You’re headed down your own road
You’re headed down your own road

Ronnie Raney was the perfect antidote
For Louanne’s Highland Park innocence
They traded Ol’ Miss for a shotgun house in Vicksburg
With no thought to consequence
Molly Raney was Ronnie’s mother
His brother Lonnie was shurf
The Raneys sold drugs from Natchez to Memphis
You get in their way, you got hurt

When you don’t hear what momma says …

November and an iron sky
Fields of skeleton cotton and corn
Louanne was tryin’ to drive back to Dallas
To the one she was when she was born
At a Pak-a-Sak this side of Waskom
Standing at the Texas line
Drizzlin’ rain fallin’ steady since she left Monroe
She ain’t ready to leave Vicksburg behind
She ain’t ready to leave Vicksburg behind

© 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.

Ready For Change
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Lucy Cooper and Levi Hooper met in Jackson, Mississippi when they lived across the street from each other (see song “Levi and Lucy”). They became involved in a relationship, something of an attraction of opposites: Levi was a church-going, salt of the earth type, whereas Lucy was a hell-raising rebel, who was no stranger to a variety of mind-altering substances.

However, Lucy had begun to feel that she had reached a dead end with her life, and was looking, most likely subconsciously, for new direction, one which seemed to be provided by Levi.

Unfortunately, Levi came along too late for Lucy, who was overtaken by the momentum and trajectory of her past life. One of her marijuana customers offered her name as his dealer, in exchange for a suspended sentence for simple possession. Lucy was arrested and convicted for distribution and sent to prison, where after a year into her 18 month sentence, she succumbed to depression and committed suicide (see song, “When Louanne Met Lucy in Prison”).

Levi was left to pick up the pieces as best he could in the wake of this aborted relationship (see song, “Levi After Lucy”).

When Lucy and Levi met
Lucy wasn’t ready yet
To turn over a new leaf
But she really wanted to
To do what she had to do
Her life had mostly brought her grief

The mirror Lucy looked in
Showed her where she had been
But not where she wanted to go to
Levi was steady, Levi was strong
Someone Lucy could rely upon
Change ain’t what you want but what you do

Lucy wasn’t sure how to start
But something was cooking in her heart
Pushing her past the life she had known
Levi was the catalyst
Even so it was hit or miss
All he could do was cheer Lucy on

The mirror Lucy looked in
Showed her where she had been
But not where she wanted to go to
Levi was steady, Levi was strong
Someone Lucy could rely upon
Change ain’t what you want but what you do

It’ll take some time
For Lucy to leave behind
The people and things that were holding her back
But with Live by her side
Lucy thought she could get by
But things didn’t turn out like that

The mirror Lucy looked in
Showed her where she had been
But not where she wanted to go to
Levi was steady, Levi was strong
Someone Lucy could rely upon
Change ain’t what you want but what you do

© 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.

One Time Too Many
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

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 (see song, “Louanne in Vicksburg“).

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 (see song, “A Waxahachie Funeral“).

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 …

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 …

© 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
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

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
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
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

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 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.

Down 80 East
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Upon hearing of Lucy Cooper‘s death while in prison, Levi Hooper went on a bender. Getting in his truck and driving through Mississippi: Greenwood, Greenville, Vicksburg and even into Louisiana. He drank until drunk in small bars along the way (see songs, “When Louanne Met Lucy in Prison” and “Levi After Lucy“).

This behavior was certainly unusual for Levi, normally a down-to-earth, church-going man who spent much of his spare time helping his mother, Mildred Motts Hooper, with her house and business. She had turned her home into a thrift shop a year after her husband passed on (see song, “Mildred’s House of Values“).

This drinking road trip only lasted a little over a week, but it was enough for Levi’s mother, to become concerned. So it was with relief that he finally came home, and things returned to normal without Levi offering up any explanation as to the reason for his absence.

Levi woke up on the wrong side of the road
Sitting on the side of 80 East
Last thing he remembered was stumbling out that old church
Pressing a wrinkled twenty on the priest

Time to go back, runnin’ wild has run its course
He can’t run away from the grief
He needs a shave, a strong cup of coffee
Time to go back, down 80 East

He don’t understand why Lucy did what she did
She was so close to getting her parole
But this drinking and running has gone on long enough
What he’s looking for ain’t down this road

Time to go back, runnin’ wild has run its course
He can’t run away from the grief
He needs a shave, a strong cup of coffee
Time to go back, down 80 East

All along Levi thought it too good to be true
Doubted he and Lucy would last
But it looked like she was headed in the right direction
In the end she just ran out of gas

Time to go back, runnin’ wild has run its course
He can’t run away from the grief
He needs a shave, a strong cup of coffee
Time to go back, down 80 East

© 2019 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.

Lucy’s Grandma On Her Momma’s Side
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

The May 24, 1935, Roanoke Times headline read: Woman Pilot of Whiskey Cars Is Placed On Stand. Millie Carson Sparks testified on May 23 for a half hour. “So great was the interest with which her appearance has been awaited that it served to overshadow a full day of varied testimony . . .” The experience was a disappointing one for most, including Anderson, who saw his hopes of a great mountain heroine die with her appearance on the witness stand. “Mrs. Carson, whose name became so widely known here in the palmy [sic] days of the bootleggers during Prohibition, appeared minus the diamond that once gleamed in her teeth. She was dressed in a white outfit with hat and shoes to match, the dress having brown ruffled sleeves and collar gathered in front with a large cameo pin.

Mildred “Millie” Sparks was a tall, thin and sophisticated young woman whose appearance and mien belied her Southwestern Virginia upbringing. Sparks had originally married a big-shot bootlegger and soon became the principal driver for the operation, driving pilot cars as the caravans of booze careened and smashed their way through the hills of rural towns and into the conduits of the major cities, becoming a celebrity in the process. They said Sparks had movie-star looks and diamonds set in her teeth.

The woman she presented to the world gave no indication of the kind of upbringing she experienced as a girl.

She would have been out of bed at dawn. Summers came on the mountain farm then winters. From the time she was six or seven, she went, for a few months each winter, to a mountain school.

From the time when she was tall enough to stand up to the stove she got up and got the breakfast. In the winter there were corn bread and hot hog meat, and in the summer there were greens. Then she had to clean up the dishes and sweep out the house. She said that the house had no floor. There was just the hard earth, clay she said, made hard and even shiny by much tramping of bare and unwashed feet. To sweep out the house with a homemade broom her father had made, to wash the dishes – mend and wash her father’s clothes.

To school for a few months each winter, for four or five years – to learn anyway to read and write. Spring, summer, fall, and winter. There were plenty of creeping crawling things. “We had lice and bedbugs,” she said. She thought, when she was a child, they were companions every one had.

When she was sixteen she decided she could take no more of the life of back-breaking work and ran off to Raleigh and found work in one of the textile mills. Eventually she met the men involved in the bootlegging and married one.

No one around called the thing “bootlegging.” That might as well have been a foreign word. “You mean blockadin’, sir? What blockades?” Nobody ever said “moonshine” either. White Lightning. White Mule. Moon. Stump Whiskey. Mountain Dew. Squirrel Whiskey. Fire Water.

She had a little girl, Bessie, and chose to retire from her husband’s business, which was becoming increasingly dangerous and unprofitable by the early ’30s. It wasn’t long before the Feds shut down the entire enterprise, culminating with the longest trial in state history. She died 50 years after giving testimony in that trial at the age of 86.

Lucy’s grandma on her momma’s side
Was still around when Lucy died
Bessie Grant was born in the Depression
Had a hard life but was full of fun
Lucy was her favorite one
They never told her Lucy died in prison

Bessie’s momma was a blockader
Revenuers could never fade her
When she drove her fast pilot car
Millie Sparks had a diamond in her teeth
Ever’ thing she did was for keeps
Wore a camel coat; smoked a cigar

A long line of strong women
Tough as nails every one
They were here before this land was named
None of ’em was ever tamed
There ain’ ’nuff time to tell what all they done

Lucy’s momma Mae had a juke joint
Over by Friar’s Point
Where the all the old blues men played
Lucy’s daddy Frank burned it down
Bragged he was tired of her runnin’ around
‘Til he met the business end of a .38

A long line of strong women …

Maybe you heard about Lucy’s end
But six months after she went in
She had a baby, a little boy
They took the child and sent him off
Did it all without a second thought
Momma Mae found him, raised him up as McCoy

A long line of strong women …

© 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
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

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 (see song, “A Waxahachie Funeral“).

© 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 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 …

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 of eighteen
When her life seemed so full of promise
Magnolias and September dreams

Standin’ with her people among weathered stones …

© 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.

“On the Road To Old Mexico”

LOCATION: Texas; Mexico
PERIOD: 1919
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Homer Hardin (1902-1985); Virgil Hardin (1902-1992); Henry “Mack” Adams (1850-1919); Mamie Adams (1884-1970); John Henry Hardin (1878-1949)

Homer and Virgil Hardin lived with their maternal grandfather on his ranch in West Texas. Ten years previously, their parents divorced and their father moved to town, whom they saw occasionally; but they hadn’t seen their mother since she moved to San Antonio shortly after the divorce.

Their grandfather was the oldest of eight boys and the only one to live past the age of twenty-five. That was in eighteen sixty-six. In that same year the first cattle were driven through what was still Bexar County and across the north end of the ranch and on to Fort Sumner and Denver.

He was a crusty old cob, but a good man, and he had taught them the important things about being a man. This song takes place in 1919 after this grandfather passed on. Homer and Virgil’s mother did not want to live on the ranch, nor to even keep it, and put it up for sale.

This was when they decided to go down to Mexico and have an adventure.

ON THE ROAD TO OLD MEXICO
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Ever think about dyin?
Yeah, some. You?
Think there’s a heaven?
People think what they want to.
Why you think she sold granpa’s land?
Guess she preferred city livin’.
For some, a West Texas cattle ranch,
Ain’t the next best thing to heaven.

My name’s Homer Hardin,
Our ma’s been gone bout ten years.
She left this place an’ us like we was nothin;
Granpa, Virg, an’ me been here.
Then after granpa had died,
She sold his ranch lock, stock, an’ barrel;
That’s what caused me and Virg to decide,
To grab our horses and saddles.
On the road to Old Mexico.
On the road to Old Mexico.

They rode all day and the day after,
South through dusty flatland;
Distant mesas capped with cedar;
They had direction, but no plan.
Hom, why you think she left pa?
Guess her feelin’ for him ‘n’ us had dimmed.
Couldn’t he convince her to call it off?
Naw, he signed whatever she put in front of him.

Virg took a coal from the fire,
And lit a cigarette.
The sparks rose red among the stars;
Their two forms, a silhouette.
Virgil grinned;, damn we done it for sure,
You think they’ll be huntin’ us?
I don’t know. What for?
Just seemed too easy, I guess.
On the road to Old Mexico.
On the road to Old Mexico.

If Pa hadn’t run off when he was small,
We’d of been born in Tennessee.
“We” wouldnt of been born at all.
Why, Hom? That’s crazy.
Cause our mama’s from San Angelo,
And he never would’ve met her.
He’d of met somebody an’ so’d she … So?
Would not’ve been “us” they had in Tennessee or Texas.

Wonder what they’re doin’ back home?
Homer leaned, spat, and looked around;
Probably havin’ the biggest time they’ve known.
Probably struck oil; pickin’ out new cars in town.
Ever get ill at ease, Virgil said.
I don’t know. Whaddya mean?
Y’know, jus’ something youve misread.
Sure. Like a place you ain’t spose to be?
On the road to Old Mexico.
On the road to Old Mexico.

They dismounted, uncinched their saddles;
Sat down beside a copse of willows;
Ate Vienna sausages and crackers;
Feelin’ like a-cupla cowboy heros.
Beneath a silver moon the water shimmered;
They rode across naked and cold.
The horses arose from the river,
Think they got Vienna sausages in Mexico?

They looked back at the country they’d left.
Got dressed in slience, no more chatting.
Put their horses into a gallop,
Hats in the air, laughin’.
Sat their horses in the moonlight,
Goddamn, you know where we’re at?
They paused in the cool of the night;
Then rode south into scrubland, dry and flat.
On the road to Old Mexico.
On the road to Old Mexico.

© 2023 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.

“Butterfly of Tyler”

In the early decades of the twentieth century, upper class Southern families, in many ways, still lived by a code of behavior that reflected antebellum values.  Young men and women socialized at the frequent balls and dinners held at the large homes among the wealthy Southern families. Lillian Cobb was often the prettiest girl there and enjoyed the attention of most of the eligible young men, who would crowd around her, filling her dance card. She was described by some as a butterfly, flitting from partner to partner.

A vestige of what was a 19th century value system, fathers controlled whom their daughters saw socially and ultimately married.  It was unusual for a daughter in her early twenties, or more likely eighteen or nineteen, to defy her father in her choice for a husband.  Lillian Cobb’s father was no different, and she was a product of a culture which strictly prohibited her from choosing a romantic partner from outside her family’s social strata or someone whose reputation had been seriously tarnished.

In the 1910s and 1920s, prior to the Great Depression, this society was peopled by men who did not inherit their wealth but had grown rich in industry or one of the professions, doctor or lawyer.  This was especially true for East Texas towns such as Tyler, where much of the new wealth came from oil and gas production. But there were still the old money families, and these two classes, the newly rich and the old guard, made up one upper social class.

In the case of Lillian Cobb, she fell in love with the irresponsible but dashing son of a Texas family whose roots went deep, back before statehood.

William MacLachlan was the second oldest son of Andrew MacLachlan, patriarch of an old family whose money derived from huge land holdings and cattle.  Andrew had never allowed drilling on any of his land, considering it a blight on the landscape.  Cattle were living things, warm bodies which you raised from birth and fed and took care of for several years.

Andrew’s son William, Willy his friends called him, was a Romantic youth, whose mind was filled with the poetry of John Keats and Robert Browning, and ideas about manhood coming out of novels of Walter Scott.  He had aspirations to write, himself, and filled composition books with his poetry.  A couple of times Willy bound these poems into folios, adding some ink and watercolor drawings, which he then gave to Lillian as his form of courtship.

Willy had dropped out the University of Texas, living off his family without any clear direction for earning his own way, or plans for the future other than bumming around Europe.  Willy was known to drink copious amounts of whiskey, something else which would not endear him to any of the Tyler aristocracy.

William MacLachlan was just the kind of boy Randolph Cobb, Lillian’s father, would never approve of for his daughter. And he did every thing in his power to thwart any ideas of marriage between his daughter and Willy MacLachlan.

By contrast Walter Murphy was in his final year at University of Texas law school, with a promising future assured.  Lillian might have been in love with the dreamy Willy, but her father knew to whom he was going place his daughter’s hand in marriage.

Lillian Cobb (1894-1986) married Walter Murphy (1889-1966) in 1916, gave birth to Peter Cobb Murphy (1917-1999). Peter C. Murphy was father to Helen Haynes Murphy (1947), Louann Bowden’s mother.

BUTTERFLY OF TYLER
(F.D. Leone, Jr.)

There had been a round of parties
For Lillian Cobb’s upcoming wedding day
She spent the night before crying in her room
That 1916 Saturday in May

A great-aunt on her daddy’s side
Sat with her, they talked the night away
“I’ll tell your father to call this wedding off”
“You mustn’t do that; it’s too late.”

The butterfly of Tyler
Flitting on her careless wings
Young men would crowd beside her
A vision fading into a dream
A vision fading into a dream

Any other girl would have been thrilled
Walter Murphy was the catch of the year
But he was not who Lillian had set her eye
Her father refused the one she held dear

So she cried for the good times that would be no more
For the names that had filled her dance card
For all the twilight parties and the one
Who lives still in her heart

The butterfly of Tyler
Flitting on her careless wings
Young men would crowd beside her
A vision fading into a dream
A vision fading into a dream

© 2020 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.

“Love in the Afternoon”

Lillian Cobb’s marriage to Walter Murphy was not a happy one. It is not surprising since from the outset, Lillian reluctantly married Walter, her father’s choice, while at the time being in love with William MacLachlan, the prospective son-in-law her father would never accept (see song, “The Butterfly of Tyler”).

Walter Murphy was a successful businessman, parlaying his law degree into a series of successful business ventures with some of his clients. He had built a large mansion in Waxahachie, Texas, for his wife and children: Peter his oldest son born in 1917, Nora in 1920 and his youngest Andrew in 1928, following two miscarriages in between the last two.

Walter did not know that his wife Lillian, after ten faithful years, had ultimately been unfaithful to him, with William MacLachlan, with whom she had remained in love since the outset of their marriage.

Things got worse for Walter and Lillian when his fortune was devastated in the Great Depression. With their wealth gone, Lillian and Walter could no longer sustain the fiction of their marriage, and it happened that during one of their many arguments Lillian flung Willy MacLachlan in Walter’s face.  They were divorced in 1931, Lillian retaining custody of their three kids.

Lillian and Willy had a small private wedding without delay, but ironically, without the excitement that their illicit affair had produced, the routine of day-to-day married life had the effect of cooling their romance somewhat.  However, they remained married since there was always warm affection, and they had two children, in addition to Lillian’s three from her former marriage.

LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON
(F.D. Leone, Jr.)

They’d meet in the house her husband built
But never in her bedroom
She didn’t second-guess, felt no guilt
Love in the afternoon

Told herself she’d earned this happiness
She didn’t choose her husband, he was her father’s groom
After ten faithful years she had a dalliance
Love in the afternoon

It happened by accident
On one of her trips back home they fell together
Eyebrows were raised, there were comments
But it was no surprise those two were lovers

Her marriage had grown cold over the years
The papers were drawn up very soon
Down the road for her it was crystal clear
Love in the afternoon

The lovers cast their lot in the marriage game
But sadly the blush was off the bloom
Their life became routine and was not the same
As love in the afternoon

It happened by accident
On one of her trips back home they fell together
Eyebrows were raised, there were comments
But it was no surprise those two were lovers

They’d meet in the house her husband built
But never in her bedroom
She didn’t second-guess, felt no guilt
Love in the afternoon

© 2019 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.

Jedadiah Phelps (1856-1888?)

Jed Phelps was the younger brother of Nellie Phelps, the grandmother of Earl Bowden’s maternal grandmother.  Earl Bowden was Louanne Bowden’s father, which makes Jed Phelps her great-great-great-granduncle.

By the time Jed was six he’d lost his older brother Burch and his mother.  Ten years later his father died leaving his sister and him alone on the family farm in Tennessee (see song “I Didn’t Know What Else to Do“).  Nellie married Robert Dorsey the son of a wealthy Texas rancher when she was 17, in 1873.  Dorsey brought Nellie and Jed with him back to his family’s Texas ranch, which was rather large.  Dorsey land stretched between what would become the future cities of Monahans and Abilene.

Abilene was established by cattlemen such as Charles Dorsey, Bob’s father, as a stock shipping point on the Texas and Pacific Railway in 1881. Monahans grew up around a deep water well dug a few years later when the railroad surveyors discovered that the lack of water for the laying crew and their animals would slow down construction of the rail.  Monahans’ digging of a water well produced an abundance of good water and the town would thrive.

Jed was a disgruntled young man, at sixteen he didn’t much like being bossed around by Bob Dorsey.  Having an active imagination Jed dreamed of joining the Texas Rangers whose fame of heroic deeds fighting the Indians and Mexicans he’d heard all about in the bunkhouse.  And so, that’s what he did as soon as he turned nineteen.

But by then the Indians had been run off and the Mexicans no longer posed much of a threat.  Mainly the Rangers were a mercenary band supporting the ranchers whose barbed wire fences were an obstacle for the old cattle drovers accustomed to driving their herds north unobstructed.

There had been a fence war raging between the cattlemen taking large herds across Texas to places like Kansas City and the ranchers who tried to preserve the integrity of their ranches.  This conflict eventually petered out when the railroad was completed since it made no sense to drive the herds north when they could much easier be loaded onto a train.

Disenchanted with this life, in 1888 Jed decided to return to Tennessee and the family  farm to see what was there.  More disappointment awaited him, and so he rode off again, never to be heard from again (see song “A Rusted Plow“).