Tag: nostalgia

“Shreveport, 1963”

LOCATION: Shreveport, Louisiana
PERIOD: 1960s
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Michael James “Sarge” Broussard (1948-2014); Cole Lucas “Luke” Broussard (1946-1965)

Mike Broussard recalls how he and his brother Luke spent summers in Shreveport during the 1960s.  Mike was 15 and Luke was 17, a few years before each would go off to fight in Vietnam.

SHREVEPORT, 1963
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Twenty-five cent a gallon gasoline
’53 Studebaker, three on the tree
The Kokomo drive-in onion rings
Shreveport, 1963
 
Strawberry icebox pie at Strawn’s
My big brother Luke and me
Southern Maid donuts at dawn
Shreveport, 1963
 
The radio dial was set to KEEL or KOKA
Windows down, crusin’ the streets
“Louie, Louie” and “Surfin’ USA”
Shreveport, 1963
 
The Cub drive-through liquor store
A couple of Coke’s and a pint of Jim Beam
Watchin’ the planes at the airport
Shreveport, 1963
 
My brother Luke died in ‘Nam
Time seemed to stop for me
No matter where I am
It’s Shreveport, 1963
 
The radio dial was set to KEEL or KOKA
Windows down, crusin’ the streets
“Louie, Louie” and “Surfin’ USA”
Shreveport, 1963

© 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 Rusted Plow”

LOCATION: Texas
PERIOD: 1872-1888
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Jethro “Jed” Phelps (1856-1888, 32); Nellie Phelps (1855-1922, 67); William Phelps (1834-1872); Martha Massey (1835-1862)

Jed Phelps describes life after his Pa died: His sister Nellie marries a Texas rancher who brings them all to his ranch and puts sixteen year old Jed to work. However, after a few years Jed doesn’t take to ranchin’. He’d heard heroic stories about the Texas Rangers and joins up. When that isn’t all he dreamed it’d be, he decides to go back to their farm in Tennessee only to find something less than he expected.

His family never jnew what happened to Jed, whether he died, or just never came home or even contacted them.

A RUSTED PLOW
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

After Pa died Nellie married Bob Dorsey
Brought us to Texas to the biggest ranch I seen
Had me punchin’ cows and breakin’ horses
So I joined the Rangers when I turned nineteen
I’d heard about the Indian Wars
But by then the Kiowa were off the plains
We were so good they don’t need us no more
‘Cept to chase off a few fence cuttin’ gangs

Things ain’t how I want to remember
The truth ain’ what I want to hear
I gotta leave the past behind, it’s better
Than seein’ what’s waitin’ for me there

1888 I went back to Tennessee
Wondered how the ol’ homestead looked now
Rode for a week and what greeted me
Was a crow sittin’ on a rusted plow
I found the block where I split wood
The barn was all but fallin’ down
Squattin’ on my heels, chewin’ a cheroot
Thinkin’ how Pa had been so proud

Things ain’t how I want to remember
The truth ain’ what I want to hear
I gotta leave the past behind, it’s better
Than seein’ what’s waitin’ for me there

Went around back, found those graves
Cleaned them up straightened the stones
A part of me kinda wished we had stayed
But I can’t get back what’s long gone
Spose I got what I came for
It’s sure all that’s here to be found
I’ll ride away come back no more
Not for any crow sittin’ on a rusted plow
I’ll ride away come back no more
Not for no crow sittin’ on a rusted plow

© 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.

“1951”

LOCATION: Shreveport & Bossier, Louisiana
PERIOD: 1950s-2016
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Luther Lee McLemore (1951); Agnes Tyler (1920-2005); Dorothy “DiDi” Baxter (1952); Charlie McLemore (1973); Sarah McLemore (1975)

Luther Lee McLemore was Jake McLemore‘s older brother. Born in 1951, Luther came of age during the turbulent period of the Sixties. This song has him looking back on those times in 2019 as a retired mailman living in his hometown, Shreveport, Louisiana.

Luther’s most vivid memories are from his teenage years, living through the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and the Vietnam War. However, Lyndon Johnson had created draft deferments for anyone in college, as well as a variety of minor medical conditions which could qualify as an exemption. This policy ultimately meant that while most Middle Class young men eligible for the draft had several avenues to avoid service, those from less affluent families were caught up in the war.

Luther was just young enough that his four years in college effectively placed him out of range of the draft, since by 1973 the US was deescalating the war effort, bringing soldiers home instead of sending more over.

After he graduated, Luther worked a number of dead-end jobs, but eventually took and passed the civil service exam. In 1976 he began working as a postman, which he did for the next forty years, retiring in 2016. But those forty years seem like a blur, overshadowed by his formative years during the Sixties.

1951
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

My name is Luther McLemore
1951 is the year I was born
It made me who I am
Taught to say, “no, sir” and “yes, ma’am”

Was eleven in ’63
Saw my mother cryin’ at the TV
Mama said someone shot the president
I didn’t know then what it meant

Was in high school in ’68
The streets were filled with so much hate
They killed Martin Luther King
Then Bobby Kennedy, and a dream

Graduated in ’69
A man from the army tried to get me to sign
But I was lucky and got in a university
Plenty of others weren’t lucky like me

’76 I took the civil service exam
A post office in Bossier hired me as a mailman
Loved one woman, we had a couple of kids
But by ’88, we’d hit the skids

I’m retired now, living in Shreveport
I like a beer, sitting on my porch
Last forty years seem like a blur
Mostly I think about how things were
Last forty years seem like a blur
Mostly I think about how things were

© 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 and Loss During the Gold Rush

The Ballad of Black Jack Kelley and Spooner Magee

Location: North Central Louisiana
Period: 1849
Dramatis personae: “Black Jack” Kelley; Spooner Magee; the Stranger.

Jack Kelley (1824-1886) married into the Magee family, marrying Margaret Magee (1824-1896) in 1841. Jack and her brother, Spooner Magee (1826-1902), became best friends and would often go hunting together as well as drinking and getting into a variety of mishaps and adventures.

On the night this song describes, Jack and Spooner were at a local watering hole when Jack offers Spooner the idea of going out to California, this was 1849 when the gold rush was the rage. However, Jack proposed that they not try their luck at gold prospecting, instead to open a general mercantile storefront and sell necessaries to those with a greedier nature. Jack thought it more reliably lucrative, as he says, “fleecing the suckers.”

But while this discussion was taking place, of which Spooner remained unconvinced of the venture, a stranger interrupted them and the night took a somewhat violent and unfortunate detour.

Jack and Spoon never did make it out to California. In fact, the idea was never broached again.

A Day In The Life of Spooner Magee

Location: Northwestern Louisiana, between Monroe and Shreveport.
Period: 1879
Dramatis personae: Spooner Magee (1826-1886); Sally Ann Gray (1863-1954); Jack Kelley (1824-1869).

It’s been ten years since Jack Kelley, Spooner’s brother-in-law and best friend, died. They had shared many adventures and good times, and Spooner missed him sorely. Jack had married Spooner’s sister Margaret, and entered the Magee family as a second son. He and Spooner quickly became great running buddies. But Jack’s nature was more searching, seeking new experiences and driven by an urge to break out of the confines of rural Northwestern Louisiana. As Spooner said, “Oh, he was a rascal for sure.”

This adventurous urge is best typified by Jack’s brainstorm during the Gold Rush for he and Spooner to go out to California and set up a store to sell necessaries to the miners. A plan which was thwarted by an encounter with a sheriff’s deputy in a bar. But, Jack had planted the idea into Spooner’s brain to go out west, and Spooner never really gave up on that dream.

This song describes Spooner, late in life, reminiscing about old times with his best friend, Black Jack Kelley, and still dreaming of California.

The song takes place over the course of one day in 1879 with Spooner in the bar, the Faded Rose, talking to the bartender, Sally Ann Gray. Spooner is trying to convince her to make this far-fetched trip to California until, finally, she decides to do it.

At the end, they made it to the Pacific Ocean.

Sally Ann

Location: San Francisco, California, Monroe, Louisiana
Period: 1886-1954
Dramatis personae: Sam “Spooner” Magee (1826-1886); Sally Ann Gray (1863-1954); Sam “Teaspoon” Magee (1862-1946); Henry Olson Magee (1853-1932).

You wouldn’t know it from her name, but Sally Ann Gray was full-bloodied Sicilian. Her father’s family had anglicized their Italian name of Graziano to Gray upon first emigrating to England in the 17th century, which was quite common. Her mother and father entered America at the port of New Orleans in 1859 shortly after they were married in Cefalu, a town on the northern coast of Sicily.

Sally inherited the immigrant dream of carving out a better life and dreamed of escaping the suffocating small town in northwestern Louisiana where the family ended up, and going west. A common ambition, but in her case, one supplied to her by an older friend of her father’s who filled her head with fancy images of San Francisco.

L’Maison d’Amour

Location: San Francisco
Period: 1879-1886
Dramatis personae: Sally Ann Gray; patrons of brothel.

After Sally Ann and Spooner made it out to San Francisco, Spooner went back to Louisiana after a month or so, but Sally Ann stayed behind.

Initially she got work in a bar/brothel as a bartender, something she had been back home.  The madam, Marie LaBlanc, another Louisiana transplant, took Sally under her wing, and eventually gave her more and more responsibilities until Sally Ann was essentially her second in command.  While she did do some work as a prostitute, early on, over time she maneuvered herself more and more into management and took over upon Marie’s death, who had been killed by an obsessively jealous patron.

Sally spent seven years in San Francisco, and this song describes a typical night in which she verbally spars with a regular customer, who, while she fends of his advances, she acknowledges that he is certainly not the worst kind of man who visits the “house of love”.

Aftermath

 Location: San Francisco, California, Monroe, Louisiana
Period: 1886-1954
Dramatis personae: Sam “Spooner” Magee (1826-1886); Sally Ann Gray (1863-1954); Sam “Teaspoon” Magee (1862-1946); Henry Olson Magee (1853-1932).

Sally Ann Gray had been in San Francisco, the madam of a brothel, for the last seven years, when she gets the news that Spooner Magee has died. Spooner and Sally had come out to California in 1879 on a lark, and Sally just stayed. She comes back home to Louisiana for his funeral, and reconnects with Sam “Teaspoon” Magee, Spooner’s youngest son, whom she knew all through her childhood and high school years.

Sally and Teaspoon end up getting married, having six children, and happily living out their lives in this part of Louisiana. Teaspoon never asked about her life in California, and wouldn’t care in any event.

“Aftermath”

LOCATION: San Francisco, California, Monroe, Louisiana
PERIOD: 1886-1954
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Sam “Spooner” Magee (1826-1886); Sally Ann Gray (1863-1954); Sam “Teaspoon” Magee (1862-1946); Henry Olson Magee (1853-1932).

Sally Ann Gray had been in San Francisco, the madam of a brothel, for the last seven years, when she gets the news that Spooner Magee has died. Spooner and Sally had come out to California in 1879 on a lark, and Sally just stayed. She comes back home to Louisiana for his funeral, and reconnects with Sam “Teaspoon” Magee, Spooner’s youngest son, whom she knew all through her childhood and high school years.

Sally and Teaspoon end up getting married, having six children, and happily living out their lives in this part of Louisiana. Teaspoon never asked about her life in California, and wouldn’t care in any event.

AFTERMATH
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

I got the news on a Fridy,
Spooner Magee had died.
Been years since I seen him,
I don’ say that wi’ pride.
Spooner’s how I got to Frisco,
It was his hare-brained scheme.
Well, that’s not exactly true,
He just fanned the flames of my own dream.

I never planned on staying,
But I did, seven years.
Nice bein’ back home again;
Tha’ Louisiana drawl in my ears.
Fried chicken, corn, ‘n’ creamed potatoes,
Folks gatherin’ outta the rain.
Teaspoon brought a plate over
Said, “I’m so glad you came.”

“Y’know, y’meant the worl’ to Daddy;
He talked ’bout you all th’ time.
He never quite believed you were ‘Eye-talian,’
But swore that’s why y’shined.”
“Was just 16 when we rode west;
Y’know, I’ve changed a lot since.”
“Y’made it back for the funeral;
“Look’s like Henry’s ready to commence.”

Sam Lee’s been preachin’ for decades,
He’s got sof’ words for grief.
He touched on Spooner’s highlights
Then testified to Spoon’s belief.
That sure was news to me;
On our trip west, th’ whole four months,
Spoon never ceased talkin’,
Didn’t mention God even once.

I felt someone siddle up next t’ me,
Teaspoon; in the near dusk.
I smiled and wiped away his tear;
That’s how it started for us.
We were married 64 years,
Raised six kids together.
Of course, one was named for Spooner;
Th’ spittin’ image, an’ so clever.

I got the news on a Fridy,
Spooner Magee was dead.
Been years since I seen him,
Such was the life I led.
Tea pass’d in ’46: his liver;
He lies next to Spoon; dust t’ dust.
I’m with them, too, by the river,
A cyprus watches over us.

David Leone: guitar, vocal
Tammy Rogers: fiddle

Related songs in chronological order:
“Ballad of Black Jack Kelley and Spooner Magee”
“Sally Ann”
“A Day in the Life of Spooner Magee”
“L’Maison d’Amour”
“Aftermath”

© 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.

“Mama’s Thanksgiving”

LOCATION: Shreveport, Louisiana.
PERIOD: Thanksgiving, 1950s-1984.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Lue Ellen Knox (1900-1979); Benjamin MacCrae (1896-1969); John Henry MacCrae (1937); Alice MacCrae (1931); Benjamin John “B.J.” MacCrae (1967); Margaret Casey MacCrae (1970); Stephen Baker MacCrae (1972); Ann Ellen Martin (1963); Sarah Meredith Martin (1965); Jason MacCrae Martin (1970).

Five years after the death of their mother her children, John Henry MacCrae (1937) and Alice MacCrae Martin (1931), are talking about Thanksgiving, 1984.  They begin to reminisce about their parents and life growing up, and plan on making a meal just like the one their mother used to make when they were all at home.

This conversation is the first in which they confront the reality of their mother’s reclusive behavior after their father’s death from a sudden heart attack in 1969, her prescription pain medication addiction, and finally taking her own life in 1979.

MAMA’S THANKSGIVING
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

This year let’s make Thanksgiving,
Like Mama used to do:
Turkey and cornbread dressing,
And rice dressing too,
English peas with pearl onions,
Spiced peaches and candied yams,
Cranberry sauce on a plate,
With th’ outline of the can.
 
I loved Shreveport in November,
Clay pigeons at The Place with Daddy;
You would ride Big Red,
I’d do my best on Lady.
I remember playing catch with him,
In the soft glow of sunset;
The only sound you could hear,
Was th’ pop of th’ ball in’ th’ mitt.
 
After Daddy in died,
Mama wasn’t the same no more;
She complained of a back pain,
That she never had before.
She got some pills from Dr. Thomas,
And took to her bed;
She went into a haze and hardly came out, 
No matter what we said.

But she loved her grandkids,
For them, she really tried;
They’re the only ones who could
Touch her right mind.
But even they could tell,
Somethin’ wasn’t right with gramaw;
They would get upset those times,
When she didn’t know ’em at all.
 
I spoke to mama that week,
But didn’t get a clue;
Where she was headin’,
Or what she would do.
Over those last ten years,
She lived in her memories.
Was in th’ kitchen when the phone rang;
It was Aunt Emmalee.
 
This year let’s make Thanksgiving,
Like Mama used to do:
Turkey and cornbread dressing,
And rice dressing too.
English peas with pearl onions,
Spiced peaches and candied yams,
Cranberry sauce on a plate,
With th’ outline of the can.

© 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.

“Three Loves of Lue Ellen Knox”

LOCATION: Texarkana, Arkansas; Shreveport, Louisiana.
PERIOD: 1919-1979
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Lue Ellen Knox (1900-1979); Johnny “Jack” Stone (1899-1973); Richard Wesley Bryant (1885-1930); Benjamin MacCrae (1896-1969).

Lue Ellen Knox, Texarkana native, met Johnny “Jack” Stone in 1919 at a dance given for the soldiers returning from having served in World War I. She and Johnny had a night of romance and continued their affair for a few weeks. But it ultimately fizzled out, leaving Johnny feeling rejected and disappointed.

Almost a decade later, December of 1928, Lue Ellen started dating Richard Wesley Bryant, fifteen years her senior. Wesley was the oldest son of a wealthy Shreveport family, in the oil and gas business, and he was very wealthy. He had previously been married but his wife had died several years prior to their meeting. Wesley wooed Lue Ellen with expensive gifts, jewelry, furs,, haute couture, and was on the verge of proposing to Lue Ellen when the stock market crashed in October, 1929, leaving Wesley near bankruptcy. Shortly after breaking off their engagement, Wesley lept to his death, unable to face the shame of being broke and consequent loss of social standing.

Again, almost a decade later, spring of 1938, Lue Ellen came into contact with a navy man just back from the sea, retired, Benjamin MacCrae. He was a romantic and charmed her with a single red rose each day. They fell truly in love and their marriage lasted for thirty years before Ben suffered a fatal heart attack in 1969.

Lue Ellen lived on, alone, for another ten years but finally succumbed to her depression, and loneliness, and took her own life, at age 79, holding a photograph of Ben and with a bundle of dried roses by her side having lived a full life and loved three men.

THREE LOVES OF LUE ELLEN KNOX
(F.D. Leone, Jr.)

A bundle of dried roses by her side,
The night Lue Ellen Knox died.
Once, she was a happy bride;
Twice, happiness was stolen from her.
In her life, Lue Ellen loved three men:
Johnny, Wesley, and Ben.
After tonight she won’t love again;
That part of her story is over.

Johnny was just back from The Great War,
When he met Lue at a “coming home” dance.
Lips brush a cheek, fingertips touch an arm;
Summer kisses under rice paper lamps.
Johnny needed someone, he was haunted,
He thought Lue was who he wanted,
But Johnny ended up disappointed;
Their love flared hot then it was over.

Wesley was wealthy and older;
Since his wife died his heart had grown colder.
Lue Ellen made the embers smoulder;
Wesley felt like a new man.
He used his money to impress:
Cartier bracelet, Chanel evening dress.
On one knee he asked Lue Ellen to say yes;
The market crashed; Wesley was ruined.

Ben sent Lulu a rose every day,
Home from the sea he captured her heart.
A small wedding was planned for May;
Honeymoon in the Ozarks.
Ben loved Lulu from the day they met,
For thirty years they shared the same bed.
Then suddenly her Ben was dead;
Their time together seemed cut short.

A bundle of dried roses by her side,
It’s been ten years since Ben died.
She remembered her three loves and cried;
It had all gone by so fast.
With Ben’s photograph in her hand,
Whiskey and pills on the bedstand;
The last few months Lue Ellen planned,
To say goodbye to it all at last.
 
Ben’s death, the last cruel twist of fate;
Third time around Lue Ellen found true love.
The other two were not mistakes;
Each one perfect, for what it was.
Whiskey spilled as her head collapsed;
A few pills scattered as her hand relaxed.
The final curtain closed on her third act;
Lulu is with Ben forever after.

© 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.