Ruth Ann Robison (1950) was a paternal aunt of Pearl Robison (1973) but instead of Conyers, Georgia, Ruthann grew up in Savannah.
This song describes a weekend in the summer of 1968 when a seventeen-year-old Ruth Ann and her boyfriend Billy Wainwright spent a romantic night on Tybee Island. Ruth Ann and Billy would go on to marry, move to Mississippi, and have eight kids, Pearl’s cousins.
Depending upon your orientation, Tybee Island is either the terminus or starting point of Highway 80, which at one time ran continuously from Tybee Island to San Diego, California. During the 1960s, US 80 was decommissioned west of Dallas.
TYBEE ISLAND (F.D. Leone, Jr.) Billy Wainwright was from Savannah Ruthann Robison was his girlfriend July ’68 they took East 80 And drove to the highway’s end Billy built a fire near the lighthouse As shadows began to grow They shared a bottle of Mateus And sang songs like “Ode to Billy Joe” On Tybee Island, Tybee Island The waves sparkle like diamonds The sand on the beach The salt and the sea Billy picked a Georgia peach on Tybee Island Ruthie spread out the tattered blanket That Billy kept in that old truck They talked underneath the starlight Until the sun came up On Tybee Island, Tybee Island The waves sparkle like diamonds The sand on the beach The salt and the sea Billy picked a Georgia peach on Tybee Island Ruthann said she wanted ten children Billy told her all his deepest dreams They kissed and the world stopped spinning That’s how love is when you’re seventeen On Tybee Island, Tybee Island The waves sparkle like diamonds The sand on the beach The salt and the sea Billy picked a Georgia peach on Tybee Island The sand on the beach The salt and the sea He picked a Georgia peach on Tybee Island © 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.
Highway 80 Stories 