Arkansas Traveler

[veritas]

For some reason this just came to me. I think it's a flashback from my accordion playing days.


Oh once upon a time in Arkansas
An old man sat in his little cabin door,
And fiddled at a tune that he liked to hear,
A jolly old tune that he play'd by ear.
It was raining hard but the fiddler didn't care
He saw'd away at the popular air,
Tho' his roof tree leaked like a water fall
That didn't seem to bother the man at all.

A traveler was riding by that day,
And stopped to hear him a-practicing away
The cabin was afloat and his feet were wet,
But still the old man didn't seem to fret.
So the stranger said: "Now the way it seems to me,
You'd better mend your roof," said he.
But the old man said, as he played away:
"I couldn't mend it now, it's a rainy day."

The traveler replied: "That's all quite true,
But this, I think, is the thing for you to do;
Get busy on a day that is fair and bright,
Then pitch the old roof till it's good and tight."
But the old man kept on a-playing at his reel,
And tapped the ground with his leathery heel:
"Get along," said he, "for you give me a pain;
My cabin never leaks when it doesn't rain."

[Snaggletooth]

Music?

You've just described Black Bart and his home in the woods. I used to rattle him about his shanty shaking down to the rumble of WalMart trucks on US71 coming from Bentonville.

But honestly, when you mentioned the Arkansas Traveler, I remember:

"Val-de-ri, Val-de-ra, Val-de-ri, Val-de-rah-hah-hah-hah-hah......"

[Black Bart]

Shack Job

I used to have a buddy in the construction business at Memphis who hired a young, down-on-his-luck helper. "Slim" worked hard, took instructions well, and became an excellent bricklayer. Living in an unpainted old tumble-down shack, he drove a junk car to work; strapping a wooden home-made "mixing box" to the roof. It broke down on the freeway and he abandoned it; just left it on the side of the road; declining tow offers; saying he had to "give up" on cars now and then. For a while he walked and/or caught rides to work. After several good paychecks he bought a car that would actually run. Later on he got a fair old Nissan, then a late-model Mustang, and eventually a "demo" SUV; as good as my friend's new club-cab.

Going by Slim's "house" one day, my friend noticed he still lived in the same old pathetic shack as when he first went to work. He mentioned it and Slim replied, "I may have to live in a pile of junk, but I don't have to drive a pile of junk."