Lackawanna Rail

WRITER'S NOTES:

I know that there is a rumor that this song was written about my good friend Judy Collins.  But I am afraid that I have to dispel that rumor.  While Judy Collins is certainly worthy of a song about her, Crosby, Stills, and Nash have already taken care of that.  And she does have beautiful blue eyes.  But this song is about Judy Overby. 

I worked in a small office down in Houston, Texas.  Working there were four people who enjoyed music.  Judy, Clyde Mummert, Scott J. Riley and myself.  This goes back quite a ways. If any of you are out there, please call me!

Judy played guitar as did Clyde.  The three of us used to take lunch and go to Clyde's house to play guitar together.  Clyde had a wonderful sense of humor and we spent more time laughing than actually playing music  I was pretty new at guitar playing, but Judy had written several songs.  I still have written copies of those songs that she gave to me.  Scott was the other employee that we got together with.  Scott worked for the same company, but in a different office.  So he didn't join us for the lunchtime sing.  But I spent a lot of time with him, and we had a band called "Legend."  Scott played this Epiphone 12 string and he really played it well.

One of the funniest stories is when we were all over at Scott's house and doing a little recording of our songs.  We were (as usual) having a few beers while we sang.  At one point my wife asked Judy what the time was, and even though she was holding her beer in the same hand that had her watch, she turned it to give the time and poured beer all over herself.  I think it was an hour before we stopped laughing.

Another great incident that I remember was at one of the get together's at Clyde's house, he didn't have much in his cabinet to fix for lunch, so he thought that consume and beans sounded good.  He had a can of consume, and a can of string beans (french cut) so he combined them.    When we took that first bite, we all gagged.  We were late getting back to the office that day.  We couldn't stop laughing.

Anyway, one day Judy announced that she was moving.  She was going out west to California with her parents.  I think her dad was in the Military.  And that was the last I saw of Judy.  I imagined that she went on to do well with her music.  She was pretty, could sing like an angel, and her songs were beautiful.  I knew that nothing was happening with mine.  I hope that she did something with it.  I would love to hear her sing again.