Sam Falbo's Blues

Samuel T. Falbo was born in Floyd County
Late 1950 in eastern Kentucky
Raised by a TV repairman who tinkered
With old radios in a dimly lit kitchen
Never able to put much food on the table
In a coal covered holler in southern Floyd County

Sam and his brothers all split for Ohio
The day that oldest was legal to drive
Stacked in an Oldsmobile shoulder to shoulder
Like the bedroom they'd shared from day one in Kentucky
Just six hungry brothers all feeling lucky
Running Route 23 to a home in Ohio

Samuel T. Falbo found work on Lake Erie
Pouring four hundred miles of the Ohio Turnpike
With his two older brothers and a young Puerto Rican
Who could outwork those Falbos even when he'd been drinking
From the time he woke up to the five o'clock whistle
To a smoke filled hotel room on the Ohio Turnpike

Sam met a girl who washed clothes for a living
On the corner of Mill Street in Huron Ohio
And the traffic on Mill Street stood still when she'd smile
And she always did smell like the freshest of linens
So he gave her his name and she gave him six children
All baptized in a single room church on Lake Erie

Samuel T. Falbo bought a house by an orchard
That stretched from the tracks nearly clear to the turnpike
Where his three youngest brothers toiled when they were sober
Enough to pick apples from twenty foot ladders
And when they weren't scrapping metal or trading in horses
Or sleeping on couches in the house by the orchard

Sam was an old man before he turned thirty
From decades of concrete and honest hard living
Paycheck to paycheck layaway and credit
Knowing this life would kill him if only he'd let it
And the day he turned fifty old Falbo he let it
And they buried Sam Falbo by a church on Lake Erie

Samuel T. Falbo died broke and unnoticed
In a late model Oldsmobile on County Line 20
Leaving seven mouths hungry and fourteen hands empty
And no food on the table in a dimly-lit kitchen
Just seven mouths hungry and fourteen eyes weeping
And one middle-aged widow who smelled like the linens