When I was a small child my family and I lived in a two
bedroom house in a little town called Old Ageria
Not far from the banks of the Mississippi
near the French Quarters.
My father worked on the sugar wharf, pushing sacks of
rice, sugar, flour and beans;
for three dollars a day on a good week, five days he would
make eight dollars, that's overtime.
When cookies was two for a penny, soda pops were six cents,
bread was sixteen cents.
I cleaned house for three dollars a day,
I was just eight years old at that time,
times were very hard from mom and dad
we all had to help pull the load.
We sold bottles, mom pressed on the weekend for the neighbor,
On weekends dad cut the neighbor's grass; painted houses, worked in the movies as a security guard.
Every day we'd wash the same uniform out as if we
had a new one.
Times were very hard in the Fifties for us
and the only luxury we had then was a telephone,
and a tree house, a homemade scooter, and a radio.
We'd get by the radio and wait for the Lone Ranger to come on.
Everyone gathered to gather around the radio,
We'd imagine we were looking at TV.
First the Lone Ranger, then Amos & Andy,
then there was Johnny Royce Mathis,
singing 'Chances Are' was on the winds of September for sure in dreamland. I had
Grown up feelings in a good way
I just wanted to reach in the radio and pull him out
And just let him sing to me all night
Now I am all grown up and I'm in his fan club
What a ways I've came.