taking the money out of pay phones for the phone company

I was young and now I am old. (Psalm 37:25)

Well, I am not really old. But I am old enough to have a lot of memories.

Today I was listening to the radio, the oldies station, the one I like more than others. The songs get a bit old sometimes, but I have found no real alternative. I listen to Christian music a lot, too, but the songs get to sounding so similar and many of the styles are those I really don’t care for.

But anyway, today I was listening and American Pie came on.

Bye, bye Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry
And good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye and singing,
This will be the day that I die, this will be the day that I die.

When I hear that song I am instantly back almost 40 years. I am driving along Bissonet Drive in Houston coming home from work and driving my 1956 Chevy Pickup.

I had a job with the Telephone Company taking money out of pay phones. This was a great job. You had a chance to go into any business anywhere. Everybody had a pay phone in those days and Southwestern Bell Telephone owned them all in Houston.

I drove around in a Southwestern Bell Telephone Company Step Van and had a bicycle lock full of keys. Each pay phone had a different key, if you can imagine that. It really didn’t matter what the business was, I went into it. Bars, restaurants, stores of all kinds. I would call Ella (who was my girlfriend at the time) from some of the weirdest places. It was a blast. I even called her in 1969 from one of the first touch tone phones. I played Mary Had A Little Lamb on it.

One day I went into a place called the Red Baron. It was all red inside, red lights and all. I have always had trouble with red – either light or print – seeing in it. But I went in and began to look around for the phone. A girl came up and asked me if she could help. I told her I was looking for the phone. She took me by the hand and led me over to it. As we went, it dawned on me that she had little if any clothing on. For a 19 year old boy, that was a bit disconcerting. It would be for a 61 year old man, too, for that matter.

But that was the job. I crawled across stages where girls were dancing, fended off drunks, talked to Hare Krishna girls (common all over Houston in those days with their saffron colored robes), walked around with impunity everywhere. I was the phone man, after all.

But after I got out of the army, I came back to the job. I bought my 1956 Chevy pickup, which I named Ralph. It was light blue and had a early 60’s Ford Fleetside bed on it. Around the bed and over the top was railing. The guy I bought it from had hauled lumber on it.  It had the old style foot starter and was, of course, three speed standard. I bought it for $60. And it was me all over. I drove it for years. There was no other vehicle that fit me, before or since, like that pickup did.

I drove to work with the windows down, of course. This was Houston. And after work, I drove home and American Pie would play. It was big at the time. My hair and mustache blowing in the breeze, I would sing at the top of my lungs and the world was good.

Every time I hear that song, I think of those days. I was 23 years old, with a good job and a fun truck, a pretty wife and an apartment – not necessarily in that order, my pretty sweetheart. I was 23 years old, with a pretty wife and a fun truck, an apartment and a good job – is that better? We went to a church where people liked us and did stuff in it – led singing, the occasional Wednesday evening devotional, taught the kids’ class.

Life was good in a way it has never been since. It is not that life has been bad since, but it was so uncomplicated then.

Don McLean is old now, the song is on the extreme oldies list, no one bemoans the death of Buddy Holly anymore, or understands any of the esoteric words. Oddly enough, I remember just about all the words. For all the good it does me.

But when I hear it, I am 23 again, driving with my hair flying in the breeze, not a care in the world, driving old Ralph, coming home to my pretty wife.

It almost hurts. I sure am glad I got to do it.