Take Off Your Thirsty Boots and Stay for a While. . .

Tuesday, 1AM, May 20. David James here.

These photos are described below.

Thirsty Boots, by Eric Andersen, is the song of the day for me. HERE is my version of it, recorded in the motel room here in Montgomery, while the emotion is still fresh in my mind, on the mighty Macintosh. We’ll dedicate this to all my Freedom Summer friends, but especially to Lola, who had a hard day. it really epitomizes my love for those people of yesterday who did what they did for us. Some of them are still alive; this is also for the love of them. Here's the words:

1 You've long been on the open road, you've been sleeping in the rain,
From dirty words and muddy cells your clothes are smeared and stained,
But the dirty words and muddy cells will soon be hid in shame
So only stop to rest yourself ‘til you are off again

Chorus:

So take off your thirsty boots and stay for a while,
Your feet are hot and weary, from a dusty mile,
And maybe I can make you laugh, maybe I can try,
I'm just looking for the evening, and the morning in your eye.

2 So tell me of the ones you saw as far as you could see
Across the plain from field to town a-marching to be free
And of the rusted prison gates that tumbled by degree
Like laughing children, one by one, they look like you and me [ch]

3 I know you are no stranger down the crooked rainbow trails
From dancing cliff-edged shattered sills of slandered, shackled jails
For the voices drift up from below as the walls they're being scaled
Yes, all of this, and more, my friend, your song shall not be failed. [ch]

Yesterday we drove the route of the Selma to Montgomery March, the third try, on March 21, 1965. We stopped by Viola Liuzzo's memorial. I remember her murder from when I was a young boy.

Yesterday (Sunday, May 18) we ended our day’s journey at the 1st Baptist “Brick-a-day” Church on North Ripley Street in Montgomery. Now, I wrote this whole bit, Friday, about how I was already missing Mississippi. Little did I (we) know the reception in store at the Brick-a-day Church. [Now, for them what ain’t in the know, this church was led from 1952-1961 by Ralph David Abernathy. It dates back to 1867. It burned down, and the pastor, Andrew Stokes built it by exhorting his flock to bring one brick each day for the new building, hence the nickname.] So we walk into this place—I’m missing Mississippi, right—and there on either side of the pulpit are movie screens with the I.U. South Bend crest (photo #2), and “welcome.” The church is full of people there for US, and for the next three hors we get a program from Pastor E. Baxter Morris, Dot Posey Jones (hopefully photo #3), an old timer, talking about the movement and all the great figures, including E.D. Nixon (read about HIM)—more about her later—history of the church by Karen Pugh (#3), then a long and captivating address by Montgomery’s “beloved couple,” the Reverend Bob and Jeannie Graetz (photo #4), 80 years of age and still (nonviolently) kicking ass. Oh, but that wasn’t the end children! Mrs. Posey-Jones sat down at the piano, D.K. Frizette (I hope I’ve got his name right, if not someone tell me) shepherds the combined Children’s (photo # 1) (and speakinawhich, those children were mighty well behaved during the service), Youth, and Adult Choirs to the choir balcony in the front of the church, and they proceed to do two numbers. HERE is a link to my RESOURCE PAGE where they are. (Look for 5/18 Keep Hope Alive, and Go Ye Now In Peace). If you can, listen on earphones and/or play them LOUD. I recorded them on a tiny digital machine 4”x 1”. Had I known what was in store, I would have rigged up the whole rutabaga, but this recording will suffice.
I’m telling you, I was struck speechless, thunderstruck, tears coursing, awestricken, dumbstruck, you name it. Only two other times in my crabby-auld-61-year life has that happened in such a setting. The first was when I was in seventh grade, and my eighth grade sister and the St. Thomas Moore elementary school choir sang the first harmony number they had ever worked up , with their beautiful children’s’ voices I thought I was listening to angels sing. The second was in 3rd Baptist Church in South Bend in 1984, during the Jesse Jackson for President campaign when we had a Jesse rally, and this five-man, with four-piece band group did a spiritual set that so rocked the house that women were fainting. Oh, brothers and sisters, I almost got religion that day. But Sunday, May 18 has taken the cake for all time. Listen to the MP3s from the link above. Simple lyric line: in the first, “keep hope alive got to keep hope alive.” In the second, “Go Ye Now in Peace.”

[Now, dad-gummit! I swore when I started out tonight I wasn’t going to write forever and I’m not. I HAVE to get to bed, I was nodding out this afternoon at the Rosa Parks Museum. So I’m going to quit writing, post this thing and figure out how to do the HTML all over again, and go to bed. Nitey-night. Kim and Ethan I love you.]