“She was only a go-go girl in love with someone who didn’t care…” lyrics from Gordon Lightfoot, circa. 1972.
Fast forward ten years … and there we were. The oldest go-go dancer and the oldest truck driver in the universe … I was 40.
But Mr. Brown, I believe, was 70. Mr. Pat Brown, first of EMD, then of IML, sometimes union man, sometimes gypsy, started driving trucks when they still used kerosene lanterns for tail lights …. when it took a week to get to Chicago from Philadelphia … The Mr. Brown, all 6 million miles of him, and not so much as a broken marker light … Storyteller Brown, who could spin you truck tales for hours, stories that all seemed to begin with “You ain’t gonna believe this shit, but …” Rumrunner Brown, who drove through prohibition … and hauled his share of cigarettes … Grocery Man Brown, who could deliver strawberries four days out of the field to the market at Hunts Point, and never lose a flat to the “fuzzies” … Mistah Brown, if you will, a man who loved the ladies … and who the ladies loved back. So I ask you, folks, what better dancer to work the retirement party? I had the time of my life … the guys at the party were all guys I had worked with, had drunk with and shot pool with and laughed with and driven with, so we were like family, and this was just like a birthday party for a favorite uncle. Uncle Pat Brown, His Royal Highness, Master of Asphalt, Duke of Concrete, Purveyor of the Pipeline, Grapevine, Cross Bronx and 11-W, and all his favorite people. Pony Rider, Little Willie, Omega Man, Mystery Man, Solitary Man, Bootlegger, Crazy Joe, Blue Dog, Eliminator, Intimidator, and the Intruder, just to name a few … a bunch of old road drivers with more miles than the entire You Ess of A, front to back … and their best girl.
Fast forward now … And so the circle is unbroken. It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there. And the music, always the music, to remind me. Shot glasses and sequins, beer bottles and bugle beads, fringe and freaks … all mixed together in a panopoly of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, flashy and loud and alive like nothing else, before or since.
Wow, this moves fast. There is so much here and I have questions about the lives lived inbetween the words. I sense there is a lot of stories hidden between the lines and that it is worth the telling--the world of eighteen wheels and endless highways.
Fast forward now … And so the circle is unbroken. It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there. And the music, always the music, to remind me. Shot glasses and sequins, beer bottles and bugle beads, fringe and freaks … all mixed together in a panopoly of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, flashy and loud and alive like nothing else, before or since.
Wow--this is a gud'un. Takes me to places I've never been, and reminds of a picture in the "Rock Dreams" book of Honky Tonk Angels. You got the best stories, lady! Smoke 'em if you got 'em...
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