Original Release Date: 20 January 2009 (Wanamaker Recording Company/Thirty Tigers
Download “Caroline” (mp3)
It can be a tough decision to make. When he’s lying on the hard floor of a quaking boxcar on a cold night, Joe’s got to decide if he wants to wear his coat to keep hisself warm or bundle it up like a pillow to cushion his head. Unless it’s too bitterly cold, though, goes to softening his head from bouncing with the rails.
As he tried to fall asleep, he was reminded of an album he got to hear on the way to Salt Lake City. He hitched a ride down I-84, through Boise and Twin Falls. The driver kept playing an album by Otis Gibbs, Grandpa Walked a Picketline. Gibbs is a folksinger with the kind of strong but haggard voice that sounds older than the singer really is.
The song “Long Black Thunder” only had Otis’s voice and acoustic guitar. With the detailed lines like, “The clang of the rails is deafening and night air’s cold/ I sleep with torn off pieces of burlap stuck in my ears,” Joe knew that someone who had been a railroad bum wrote those lyrics. When Joe heard that song, he decided to try to hop a train when he got to Salt Lake. Home was still a long way and riding the rails would probably be the fastest way through the Rockies at night. Like Otis sang, “Used to think the world would pass me by if I can just get on that train ride/ Forget about my used-to-be’s and find a place to live simply.”
Joe’s driver was a doctor from Portland, said his name was Tommy. He liked to pick up riders when he had a long drive. People either seem to do or don’t. And most people don’t anymore. It’s not like the days when Woody used to ramble or the times Kerouac madly typed about. Time’s always changing things. You almost never hear about a hitchhiker that caused terror, but that’s what people seem to be afraid of, though.
Luckily Tommy was one of those people who stopped. Like the doctor said, “You can’t tell anything about a person just because they’re down on their luck.” Or, as Otis sings in “Sometimes Angels,” “No one looks you in the eye/ When you’re sleeping on sidewalks/ They wonder if you’re alive/ But they keep walking past/ Sometimes angels lose wings/ End up strung out and high.” The lyrics are supported with the acoustic guitar strumming, Appalachian style fiddle and steel pedal.
While Joe was glad to have the ride, he decided to explain that he wasn’t down on his luck. He had some good land and a good woman back in Kentucky. He was a painter and made a good enough living. He wasn’t making millions but he was getting by, that’s what he always said, getting by. He even offered to pitch in for gas or buy Tommy a meal.
“So why were out all the way out here?”
“A friend of mine died a while back. I promised him I would scatter his ashes off the cliffs of Twin Rocks, up in Oregon.”
“You were able to find rides all the way out to the Pacific?”
“Yeah, find rides, make rides. There’s all these cars and trucks and trains going every which way. I can always find a way to get where I need. Now I need to go home.”
“You travel around a lot?” Tommy asked.
“Not really anymore, just when I need to. When I was younger I used to go everywhere trying to find where I belonged. I guess I found out I don’t belong to one place. I can get by anywhere. I just want to be with the things I need.”
“They say there’s a time and a place for everybody. Maybe for you it isn’t the place you’re searching for, but the time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Take this song.” They were listening to “Everyday People.” The acoustic guitar was impeccably accompanied by Dobro, fiddle, and a drum set. The song started with the lyrics “Grandpa walked a picketline when he was 19/ Had a wife and kids back at home to feed/ Daddy did the same, it was his turn too/ Made things better for me and you/ Made things better for me and you.” Tommy continued, “It’s talking about families and generations that were part of union strikes, trying to improve work conditions. It makes me think back to the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the upsurge of labor unions. About 30% of private sector workers were unionized in the 50s and now only about 7% are. That’s the lowest it’s been since the Great Depression. Those were different times. I don’t think half the people around today would have made it through the Great Depression. But you would have.”
“So you think I should have been alive during the Great Depression?”
“I’m not saying you would have preferred it or it would have be better for you, but you could have survived it better than most of us from the 21st century. I can’t say how I would have done.”
Joe huffed a single snicker. “Maybe you’re right, but I’m sure as hell glad I wasn’t around back then.”
Maybe a guy like Dr. Tommy only hears someone singing folk songs about a time he doesn’t live in. But Joe hears more. There’s a message of love running though the whole album. Otis shows his tender side on songs like “Ain’t Nothing Special” and “Honey Please.” Even “Everyday People,” which mentions the union strikes, ends each chorus with the line “Kept it together and the love remains.”
When the song “Beto Junction” plays, Joe knows the Kansas place that’s being sung about. He washed his clothes and body in that place once. It’s hard to forget a truck stop that’s got its own chapel. But as the finger picked acoustic guitar and haunting tones of the steel pedal roll on, the lines that most resonate with him are “The hardest part is not heading straight home/ It feels like your best days have come and gone/ And the hardest part is waking up in truck stops/ And wishing you were back home in your baby’s arms.”
Part of him wants to make a pilgrimage to Beto Junction on this trip. He doesn’t know when he’ll be back this way again. But now, as he’s trying to fall asleep in a boxcar with a few other fellow travelers, the only thing he can think about is getting back home to Anna. He’s still got over a thousand miles to go before he gets back to the Paducah area. And all he can think of is falling asleep wrapped up with Anna.
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