Tag: divorce

“Love in the Afternoon”

LOCATION: Tyler, Texas
PERIOD: 1915-1931
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Lillian Cobb (1894-1986); Walter Murphy (1889-1966); William MacLachlan (1894-1984)

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.

“The Laughing Man at the Door”

LOCATION: Monroe, Louisiana
PERIOD: 1970s-1990s
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: James “Jamie” Lamar Halladay (1973); Frank Halladay (1938-1993); Ann Marie Halliday (1974); Lee Ann Lucas (1953)

James “Jamie” Lamar Halladay was born in Monroe, Louisiana, in 1973. His father was a musician, guitar player, Frank Halladay, who played in a series of bands, traveling Texas, Louisiana and eventually Nashville. By the time Jamie was four, Frank Halladay stopped living with the family, which also included Jamie’s younger sister, Ann Marie, although not out of their lives altogether. He would show up on birthdays and Christmas, when he could.

James Charles Halladay (1913-1995), Jamie Halladay’s grandfather, was a fighter pilot who served with distinction in the Army Air Corps during WWII. He learned to fly as a crop dusting pilot for the Huff Daland Dusters, as part of the eradication of the boll weevil. This company, moved from Macon Georgia to Monroe Louisiana, in 1925 but Charlie didn’t hire on until 1933, but stayed with the company as it became a regional commercial carrier, which eventually became Delta Airlines.

Hi son Frank showed a talent for music early on and learned to play the guitar listening to the Grand Ole Opry and especially Hank Williams when he was still pretty small. While in high school he started a band with some of his friends and they got pretty good. Good enough to become the backup band for Webb Pierce and played on the Louisiana Hayride.

It while he was playing with Webb Pierce that Frank met the woman who was to eventually become his wife and Jamie’s mother, Lee Ann Lucas. But while Frank and Lee Ann were in love and did get married, the itinerant lifestyle of a musician did not make for a stable home life and the marriage failed. Frank tried to see his kids as much as he could, but was not a regular presence in their lives.

Nevertheless, he did have an impact on Jamie’s life.

On his twelfth birthday, Frank gave Jamie a guitar and taught him a few chords, but that was just the start for Jamie. He eventually got good enough to move to Nashville and get some gigs there playing behind country stars. He ended up breaking into the studio scene and became a member of the “A list” players, i.e. first call musicians for recording sessions.

It was while he was living in Nashville that Jamie began visiting a bar, McLemore’s, and became friends with the owner Jake McLemore (see song “McLemore’s“). In 2003, he would marry Jake’s daughter, Mercedes “Mercy”, and have a son whom he named Jacob Frank, after Jake and his father.

THE LAUGHING MAN AT THE DOOR
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

In Monroe, Louisiana, standing at a window
A four year old sees his father drive away
Cowboy hat on his head, six gun on his hip
Jamie waves goodbye until his next birthday

Say goodbye to a man you hardly know
As tail lights disappear down the road
Say goodbye, watch him go
On a gray December day in Monroe

His daddy plays guitar in a traveling country band
And don’ live with them in Monroe anymore
Jamie has a sister, eighteen months old
Who don’t remember the laughing man at the door

Say goodbye to a man you hardly know
As tail lights disappear down the road
Say goodbye, watch him go
On a gray December day in Monroe

When Jamie turned twelve his dad gave him a guitar
Showed him where to put his fingers for his first chord
His dad died in ’93, when Jamie was nineteen
But who played better than the laughing man at the door

Say goodbye to a man you hardly know
As tail lights disappear down the road
Say goodbye, watch him go
On a gray December day in Monroe

© 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.

“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.

James Lamar Halladay (1973)

James “Jamie” Lamar Halladay was born in Monroe, Louisiana, in 1973.  His father was a musician, guitar player, Frank Halladay, who played in a series of bands, traveling Texas, Louisiana and eventually Nashville.  By the time Jamie was four, Frank Halladay stopped living with the family, which also included Jamie’s younger sister, Sadie, although not out of their lives altogether.  He would show up on birthdays and Christmas, when he could (see song “The Laughing Man at the Door“).

James Charles Halladay (1913-1995), Jamie Halladay’s grandfather, was a fighter pilot who served with distinction in the Army Air Corps during WWII. He learned to fly as a crop dusting pilot for the Huff Daland Dusters, as part of the eradication of the boll weevil. This company, moved from Macon Georgia to Monroe Louisiana, in 1925 but Charlie didn’t hire on until 1933, but stayed with the company as it became a regional commercial carrier, which eventually became Delta Airlines.

Hi son Frank showed a talent for music early on and learned to play the guitar listening to the Grand Ole Opry and especially Hank Williams when he was still pretty small. While in high school he started a band with some of his friends and they got pretty good. Good enough to become the backup band for Webb Pierce and played on the Louisiana Hayride.

It while he was playing with Webb Pierce that Frank met the woman who was to eventually become his wife and Jamie’s mother, Lee Ann Lucas. But while Frank and Lee Ann were in love and did get married, the itinerant lifestyle of a musician did not make for a stable home life and the marriage failed. Frank tried to see his kids as much as he could, but was not a regular presence in their lives.

Nevertheless, he did have an impact on Jamie’s life.

On his twelfth birthday, Frank gave Jamie a guitar and taught him a few chords, but that was just the start for Jamie. He eventually got good enough to move to Nashville and get some gigs there playing behind country stars. He ended up breaking into the studio scene and became a member of the “A list” players, i.e. first call musicians for recording sessions.

It was while he was living in Nashville, around 2003, that Jamie began visiting a bar, McLemore’s and became friends with the owner Jake McLemore (see song “McLemore’s“).

© 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.