|
It was just after dark when the truck started down
|
the hill that leads into Scranton Pennsylvania.
|
Carrying thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
|
Carrying thirty thousand pounds (hit it Big John) of bananas.
|
|
He was a young driver,
|
just out on his second job.
|
And he was carrying the next day's pasty fruits
|
for everyone in that coal-scarred city
|
where children play without despair
|
in backyard slag-piles and folks manage to eat each day
|
about thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
|
Yes, just about thirty thousand pounds (scream it again, John) .
|
|
He passed a sign that he should have seen,
|
saying "shift to low gear, a fifty dollar fine my friend."
|
He was thinking perhaps about the warm-breathed woman
|
who was waiting at the journey's end.
|
He started down the two mile drop,
|
the curving road that wound from the top of the hill.
|
He was pushing on through the shortening miles that ran down to the depot.
|
Just a few more miles to go,
|
then he'd go home and have her ease his long, cramped day away.
|
and the smell of thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
|
Yes the smell of thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
|
|
He was picking speed as the city spread its twinkling lights below him.
|
But he paid no heed as the shivering thoughts of the nights
|
delights went through him.
|
His foot nudged the brakes to slow him down.
|
But the pedal floored easy without a sound.
|
He said "Christ!"
|
It was funny how he had named the only man who could save him now.
|
He was trapped inside a dead-end hellslide,
|
riding on his fear-hunched back
|
was every one of those yellow green
|
I'm telling you thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
|
Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
|
|
He barely made the sweeping curve that led into the steepest grade.
|
And he missed the thankful passing bus at ninety miles an hour.
|
And he said "God, make it a dream!"
|
as he rode his last ride down.
|
And he said "God, make it a dream!"
|
as he rode his last ride down.
|
And he sideswiped nineteen neat parked cars,
|
clipped off thirteen telephone poles,
|
hit two houses, bruised eight trees,
|
and Blue-Crossed seven people.
|
it was then he lost his head,
|
not to mention an arm or two before he stopped.
|
And he slid for four hundred yards
|
along the hill that leads into Scranton, Pennsylvania.
|
All those thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
|
|
You know the man who told me about it on the bus,
|
as it went up the hill out of Scranton, Pennsylvania,
|
he shrugged his shoulders, he shook his head,
|
and he said (and this is exactly what he said)
|
"Boy that sure must've been something.
|
Just imagine thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
|
Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of mashed bananas.
|
Of bananas. Just bananas. Thirty thousand pounds.
|
of Bananas. not no driver now. Just bananas!"
|
|
|
|
-----------------
|
30,000 Pounds of Bananas
|
Harry Chapin |