CREATE: The Spirit of 76

Writing on Trains (The Parent's of my Friends Back in High School)

Down at Oakdale Station, I waited for the destination, going to the city with my friends, who were going to school at the Fashion Institute. And there were all the Wall Street Business Pursuits in their Brooks Brother’s Law-suits, going over the Journal, at 4:48 in the morning. They are the parents of my friends from High School.

Change at Babylon, Change at Jamaica, Spare change from the Daily News and spare change- make or Break ya, still playing the numbers, the parents of my friends from High School.

In our small bookend cliff towns, in our big Wet Mountain Valley, I played and sang music that I wrote for author Dick Jones. "Walking the Same Ground" has insights on community that inspired me to write 21 new songs. Like Mash Potatoes Authorship and Songwriting create a new genre. Dick and I did an hour benefit at a local residence that hosts House Concerts. The benefit was for the local Rotary Van Service and there were somewhere between 45 and 60 folks in the audience. It had me thinking about travel and an upcoming trip to my 50th High School Reunion and my 68th Birthday. With all the characters that I wrote about from the Wet Mountain Valley, I began thinking of the small villages that line the South Shore of Long Island and what it was like to become a commuter and the fear that I could wind up like my friend's parents who commuted to Manahatan at 4:40 in the morning and returned at 8:40 PM.

Coffee in the morning in the stand-up coffee bar. Regular, Black and Irish, depending on who you think you are. And I am balancing my songs and my guitar for a showcase and audition in the bar car on the fourth car from the end. It all depends: With the parents of my High School Friends. (I mean)The parents of my friends from High School. Change at Babylon, Change at Jamaica, Spare change from the Daily News and spare change-make or break ya, still playing the numbers, the parents of my friends from High School.

There was a book written in the 1950's called "Change at Jamaica" which was a "survivors" guide to riding the Long Island Rail Road. On the way to New York face out westward, and the way back eastward. If I were to write music and lyrics on life on the South Shore of Long Island, I would have to write about wagons, trains and the characters of Long Island.

The conductor is punching tickets, in his pressed blue conductor suit. He was the same one who was the spokesman for the pickets back in ‘72. I remember the faces, but I don’t know the names, of the parents of my friends back in High School.

Bridge:

I take out my pen and paper and I draw out the daily scene. Black and white news, Black and white cookies, and the shining of Black and white shoes, they make an offer that you can’t refuse, to the parents of my friends from High School. Change at Babylon, Change at Jamaica, Spare change from the Daily News and spare change- make or Break ya, still playing the numbers, the parents of my friends from High School.

And then we go underground from diesel to electric under the river, Penn Station Bound. And as we are distributed out to streets and subways, I say goodbye to my artist friends, and the parents of my friends from High School. Change at Babylon, Change at Jamaica, Spare change from the Daily News and spare change- make or Break ya, still playing the numbers, the parents of my friends from High School.

I was back there again last Fall, a few days after we got the call, home to sing at the funeral of my mother, at a church my father designed. As I looked out to the wooden pews, I saw faces of a few- friends I left behind. All the memories brought me back, and I felt that old panic attack, of writing on trains, they with the parents of my friends from High School. Change at Babylon, Change at Jamaica, Spare change from the Daily News and spare change- make or Break ya, still playing the numbers, the parents of my friends from High School.

Richard Arnold Beattie is an Author, Singer-Songwriter and Guitarist and columnist of the CREATE Daily column. He is the president and creative director for CORE, an integrated community of the Colorado Chapter of the Leadon Family Foundation; Valley Parks and Recreation; Sound Century Academy of Recording Arts and Broadcasting, Beattie Communications Studios and editor and chief of Libretto an e-magazine that details Musical Theater in Long Island Theaters from 1956 to 1977, including recordings of original shows , programs and articles about from Broadway to Jones Beach. To subscribe and become a member, email Richardbeattie809@gmail.com.