Well, I once lived on "The Blue Ridge Mountain, just a few hundred feet above the “Shenendoah River”, in West Virginia. (Oddly enough most of both of those geographical features are in Virginia, but Jefferson County, is where they are in West VA.)
Then there was the day I had to “go back to Annandale.”
I have once or twice been “Goin’ to Carolina” in more than my mind.
I have driven through a “Rainy Night in Georgia.” I saw the “Midnight Train to Georgia” leave, once, but I was going somewhere else.
I once was “Going to San Francisco” so I made a point of putting some flowers in my hair.
“Out in the West Texas Town of El Paso”, . . . Well, I left town too, although I never fell in love, or got shot. (It’s where I heard the darned song too, way more than I ever wanted to.)
Not long after that, I was “Lost in the rain in Juarez” although it was not Easter time. I ended up in “A little cafe, just the other side of the border.” Jose was not there.
“By the time I got to Phoenix”, everyone had been up for hours. It was after lunch time.
I have, of course sat on docks, in bays, and under boardwalks, and up on roofs.
If you visit Winslow, Arizona, today, you don’t have to wait around for a girl in a flatbed Ford to pass by. You’ll find her in Standin’ on the Corner Park.
When I dropped out of college my sophomore year (for sophomoric reasons) I was saying “Whoa no, William and Mary won’t do” and I was even thinking “I’m never goin back to my old school” but I was wrong. I went back and finished.
I was one amused kid when we rolled into Santa Cruz one year while the radio played the Beach Boys’ Surfin’ USA.
Just as I turned onto I-5 in Albany, Oregon, to make the long solo trek to Las Cruces, New Mexico, Whitesnake’s Here I go again (on my own) came on the radio. Now that I’m so close, spatially and temporally, I suppose I could be lost in the rain in Jaurez, and it’s Easter time too. That is, if it ever rained around here. On second thought, I don’t want to be lost in Juarez, rain, Easter or no.
I was in Kansas City in 1993 and tried to go to the corner of Twelfth Street and Vine. The intersection no longer exists because of redevelopment. There is now a lawn where Twelfth and Vine used to be. They put a street sign in the middle of the lawn indicating where the intersection used to be.
"I’m standing on the corner, Twelfth Street and Vine,
"I’m standing on the corner, Twelfth Street and Vine,
“With my Kansas City baby and a bottle of Kansas City wine.”
I was in Kansas City in 1993 and tried to go to the corner of Twelfth Street and Vine. The intersection no longer exists because of redevelopment. There is now a lawn where Twelfth and Vine used to be. They put a street sign in the middle of the lawn indicating where the intersection used to be.
"I’ll be standing on the corner of Twelfth Street and Vine,
"I’ll be standing on the corner of Twelfth Street and Vine,
“With my Kansas City baby and a bottle of Kansas City wine.”
Was often in this Blessid Union of Souls song, during the three years I lived in Newport News:
Oh Virginia down the highway 64
East way to Newport News
There you’ll find an open door in
Oh Virginia all my friends are there to greet me
Just a smile down 64 along the open road
Since I’ve often been out to visit my L.A. relatives, both Santa Monica Boulevard and Ventura Highway are old acquaintances.
I went to college in New England, and stayed up there for a little while afterwards, so I’ve seen the “turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston” “covered with snow” more than a few times. I’ve been to the “town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts” that Arlo fondly describes in Alice’s Restaurant.
My red-haired first love crosses my mind from time to time. So:
Early one mornin’ the sun was shinin’, I was layin’ in bed
wonderin’ if she’d changed at all, if her hair was still red
And later in the same song, a nod to my onetime profession:
some are mathematicians, some are carpenter’s wives,
don’t know how it all got started, don’t know what they do with their lives.
I, too, have been walkin’ in Memphis, and also Union Avenue, but I did not see the ghost of Elvis.
I have been standin’ on the corner of 52nd and Broadway.
I went through Exit 75 and was still alive. And one time on vacation I almost dropped off the edge again, down in Juarez, but I fortunately regained my balance. I also met him in a hotel, and he was in fact a Northern lad.
Many, many times in my life my friends and I drove the car to the top of the parking ramp, Fourth of July. Sat out on the hood with a couple warm beers and watched the fireworks explode in the sky.
I have also moved west down Ventura Blvd. There were indeed some bad boys standin’ in the shadows.
One time while camping I spent a Night On Bald Mountain.
In college I was laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone, going home. It wasn’t in New York City, but the winters sure were bleedin’ me.
I have also spent one more day up in the canyons, and one more night in Hollywood, though not consecutively. A friend and I were stumbling through the barrio once, too, and I distinctly remember wishing I was someone just a little more funky.
And countless times have I walked the Streets of Philadelphia, often in the rain.
