Tom Inspires Prose
I am listening to Tom Waits this week in the shop, going through my collection of new and used CDs. I find his song 'On The Nickel' to be especially savoury.
It was written for a film about life on Fifth St., Los Angeles and begins as follows:
Sticks and stones will break my bones(2), I always will be true
And when your mama's dead and gone, I'll sing this lullaby just for you
And what becomes of all the little boys, who never comb their hair
They're lined up all around the block, on the Nickel over there.
While listening to it I think about my mother, 'dead and gone', and how she had trouble getting me to stand still long enough for her to put a tie around my neck (while getting ready for church?). I'd look this way and that, and definitely not pay attention to her wishes. Poor girl. I think I won most of those battles by running out the front door ahead of her.
["Ruth, Betty, Edith, Mary: Wives of the Harrison boys
at a Sherman wedding, October 6, 1958"]
Prose about my childhood relationship with Edith is now underway. Watch for it tomorrow or next week. Today I tip my hat to Tom Waits and his haunting lullaby for the inhabitants of Fifth St.
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