I’m not crazy, I’m just bored.
Allow me to explain how this “seed” was planted: a few weeks ago, I was chatting with a friend. She was leaving work early that day to go home and can beans. This is a pretty common reason to miss work around these parts, at least in my circle, this time of year. Whether it’s harvesting hay, soybeans, tobacco, or canning, farm work won’t wait on office work. ‘Gotta make hay while the sun shines’ as the saying goes. It would be more accurate if it was ‘while the sun beats down and tries to kill you’, but close enough. So anyway, I was telling her I still have beans my grandmother canned, and she died in 2008. I wouldn’t be scared to eat them; they look alright and have been kept in a dark cabinet upstairs where the temperature doesn’t fluctuate. My friend said that one of her wedding presents from her in-laws was several jars of green beans. They’d been stored in the basement, wrapped in newspaper. And it got me to thinking about the life of a green bean. Some country music artists have written songs about teardrops, and I don’t see much difference. So here goes.
I am told that my mother plant was designed and cultivated on a vast farm in Oregon, among many other certified seeds. I only remember life since I became packaged with roughly 400 of my brothers and sisters. Many of us didn’t make it, we were culled before ever being coated with inoculant. That’s why I was a pink green bean. I was white underneath, though. So anyway, I made it through inspection because I wasn’t deformed and I didn’t have any bug bites. I was as perfect a bean as you’ve ever laid eyes on. So I was placed into a bag, weighed, sealed, and labeled, and then layered into a cardboard box. I awaited transport, which was by train, on a pallet with many just like me.
I eventually arrived far east, and was moved into a cargo truck. Here we got divvied up. I stayed on my pallet, but others went other ways. Life was dark during this time. We just heard movement.
I wasn’t settled long in the warehouse where the truck brought me. Now the other boxes on my pallet were removed and shuffled and restocked, and I was on the road again. It had been four days since I had left Oregon, and I had been pulled off the vine last year. My life was well underway.
When I was finally unearthed from my box, it was in a well lit building that smelled of work. A young person with freckles and a scowl hung me on a metal peg. I didn’t hang there long. A man in overalls and a shirt with snaps and a pocket reached for me. I was quickly handed off to his wife, who used a pencil to strike through a line on her list. A bag of hot pink dyed corn joined me in the basket, along with some cucumber and okra seeds. I knew them from before. Okra are especially difficult to get to know, they’re like little stones. But corn is flashy and friendly and shoots up so quick you don’t recognize it from the day before. They are constantly having to reintroduce themselves. Tomato plants were placed on top of us, and a pack of squash added as an afterthought. There was some discussion of there still being seeds left from last season tucked away in the freezer.
“That’s enough work for one day, we feed half the Valley as it is,” the man in overalls grumbled to his wife.
But then he bought three pounds of onions and a bag of taters. Plus lime and fertilizer, ‘cause you can’t ever have enough lime in these parts. Or so he said. I got the sensation that the lady ringing us up and tossing us in a paper sack would be glad when he got gone. I think his wife felt the same, she was eyeballing the rat poison display pretty hard.
A short ride later, I was dumped unceremoniously onto a wooden table. A plan was hatched but it didn’t seem to be much of a plan since it didn’t deviate from last year’s layout. But that’s ok since he’d put all that cow manure and wood ash down last winter.
It wasn’t long before two or three of us at a time were dropped into little divots in the cold, red, mud. The squash, on the other hand (not the new, but the old, which was indeed found wrapped up in a parcel in the freezer), was planted in little mounds a few feet apart. A shallow trench was dug with a mattock for the okra, and the pods that had soaked in water all day were dribbled along and covered. And all went dark again for seven days and seven nights.
I felt a twisting, an unbearable urge to split. You would think the pain would be excruciating, but it was only mildly uncomfortable as I came apart and burst outward and upward. I wiggled a bit, then really got into it and clawed my way to the warmth and warmer soil. What began as a single tiny little sprout had doubled in size by the next day. I tripled, I quadrupled, I put out leaves. My leaves were green, then greener, then the greenest green. I have no other way to describe them. I’m just a bean, after all.
During this time, the man and woman came by daily, sometimes twice daily, tending the soil by killing invasive weeds, side dressing the corn with nutrients. We got sprayed to keep the itchy creepy crawly bugs off us. We saw toads nearly every night, which helped, too. The sun felt so good in those days, and the nitrogen rich rain even better. We saw deer, and rabbits, and coons, but aside from my neighbor getting nibbled one night, we were no worse for the wear. Once there was a turtle, but he stayed near the tomatoes, and spoke of a black snake in the blackberries along the fence row.
After some time, I began to bear fruit. First came a little hard pod which opened to a white flower that bees and wasps visited, then it fell off to be replaced by a longer, flatter seed pod. Mini mes! It was so exciting! The people picked these when they were still tender, about three inches long. And I assumed they went on to lead a life like mine.
Of course, this wasn’t the case. The first few were cooked immediately and served with hot buttered cornbread, sliced red tomatoes, and fried okra and potatoes. Then, as my companions and I really began to produce, the baby beans met all sorts of fates.
Some were put into a basket and carted to the local farmers market to be hawked over. Others were given by the plastic bags full to neighbors, friends, and people the church ministered to. And a sight were canned, the most glorious fate of all. Because then you were practically immortal. You could live forever behind your glass walls, brought out only when times were thin, or perhaps at a holiday meal. One of the BIG ones, like Thanksgiving or Easter. It was something to aspire to, to be a canned green bean.
But me? My time is finished, my vines have withered. I have served this earth well, and will soon be composted to give life to the next crop. And this was my life. My life as a green bean.
It began with the song Hot Rod Lincoln.
Ronnie Brackins was my friend, although he would have never admitted it. But the crowd in the parlor testified to Ronnie’s overall likeability. I was outside, marveling at his John Deere parked at the porte couche, and every time the attendants opened the glass doors I could hear the laughter and boisterous conversation inside.
I signed the book and added ‘Co-Op’ in parentheses. I never really knew Ronnie’s children, so I didn’t go up front, instead slipping into the pew beside Robin and Jerry. It is the official Co-op pew. As we sat there, I remembered well another funeral we had attended for another tire shop employee years ago.
And then I had to grin, because I remembered the more recent time I’d sat here- the funeral of Joe Woods. That was the time I’d got in the wrong car, mistakenly thinking it was Robin’s, and instead it was piloted by a guy with a nose ring and a young lady with some pink hair who were horrified that a stranger was attempting to climb in their backseat at Food City soon after they parked. I was even moving their Christmas presents out of my way.
I digress.
So here comes Margaret, and boy was I glad to see her. She is one of the sweetest women to ever work at the Co-op. I haven’t laid eyes on her in a coon’s age. She looked exactly the same. Instantly, I remembered a story from her years working with Ronnie.
Margaret worked the gas window. In the old days, it was part of the office. After a remodel in 2001, the gas window became adjacent to the tire shop when the office moved to the back, between the warehouse and showroom. This meant Margaret was now interacting with tire shop employees and patrons regularly.
And the tire shop loved nothing better than a good joke.
And more often than not, Ronnie Brackins was the mastermind of said joke.
So Margaret had a headache. She was sitting at her desk with her head on her arms and her eyes closed. Ronnie, ever solicitous, asked if she was ok.
“Oh, Ronnie, I’ve just got the worst headache!”
Ronnie, never one to miss an opportunity, asked what she had tried to get rid of it.
Standard fare. Tylenol, Advil, whatever.
“Oh, the best cure is orange peels,” he advised, gravely serious.
“Orange peels???”Margaret asked with wonder. I should add here that Margaret is very, very gullible.
“Oh yeah, orange peels. Haven’t you ever heard of that? I remember my granny used them and swore by it! Must be an old mountain cure. I can’t believe you’ve lived here your whole life and never heard of using them.”
“Well, what do you do with them? Boil them and stand over the pot?”
“Oh no, you just put them in your ears.”
“In your ears?? Now, Ronnie. You’re going on with me!”
“I’m not!!! I’m telling you, my granny did it, and my momma too!”
“So I just peel an orange and cram the peelings in my ears?”
Ronnie nodded enthusiastically, excited that his plan was coming to fruition.
Next thing you know, Margaret had located her an orange, or at least the peelings (or maybe Ronnie did to speed the process along), and had them dangling from each ear canal like orange snake earrings, merrily ringing people up as they pumped their fuel.
This went on for hours.
Ronnie came out of the shop to turn in a ticket and couldn’t hold back any longer, looking at poor Margaret, blissfully oblivious to the joke. He broke down in hysterical laughter, and finally told her the truth.
Ronnie almost died on that day in 2001.
But instead he passed away Monday, twenty years later, surrounded by his legacy: his children and grandchildren.
I worked with Ronnie for several years. He liked me because I had the good sense to drive a Chevrolet pickup. Although he almost killed me once.
I was new. Ronnie did alignments in the first bay. The door from the tire shop showroom into the tire shop swung a little wildly and I was too short to see through the plate glass at the top… and I’m not a very considerate person, anyway. I would never work out in food services. Anyway, I was hell bent on running a ticket out to the board and banged through the door.
Ronnie, as I said, worked in that first bay. He had a dually truck on the racks for alignment. He had the machine nearly calibrated and was working on the final tire alignment when I swung through. The door whammed the machinery attached to the front tire on the passenger side, sending all measurements askew.
Ronnie hollered as the computer began to beep alarmingly.
I apologized profusely, knowing it was bad. I had been careless. It was a tight fit there anyway, with a regular vehicle.
Ronnie simmered down and we went on about our day, him starting over on the truck that he’d already spent about three hours on.
A few hours later, I had to run another ticket out. And once again, I failed to remember the truck that Ronnie had been slaving over just inches from the door.
Yes, I hit it again. Yes, Ronnie cussed. Yes, I cried and ran for cover.
It took us about a week to speak again.
Ronnie’s good friend was Danny and I guess I can tell this now that they’re both dead and gone. On their lunch hour, they would frequent the local city pool and watch the girls in their bathing suits like a couple of dirty old men 🤣🤣
And now that I’ve told that, I can tell you that Ronnie raised three kids all by himself and did a bang up job. They’re all well and have a strong work ethic and sense of self. The three of them took turns speaking tonight, in lieu of a preacher, because Ronnie didn’t frequent the church house for his sermons. He got them on the farm, in the woods, and on the lake. But not to worry, he knew the Lord.
His oldest son said Ronnie was every dad any of us had: he was the strongest, bravest, most protective, meanest, and hardest working man alive. He was hard on you but would tell you he loved you and that he was proud when the day was done. I corrected him in my mind- only the most fortunate have dads like that.
I kept looking around the parlor for Rick, his brother. I keep forgetting Rick passed this past February. I’d say they sure did shake and howdy and then got down to work in Heaven under the direction of two Fathers.
Ronnie’s health began to decline around the time Darrel left, and he began disability. I would save wheat pennies for him and he’d come in for cattle feed and salt and we’d trade out money.
The children were mystified this week as they began going through his possessions. They found a multitude of hats and a surplus of ammo and knives, but I wasn’t surprised at all. I wonder what they’ll think when they find the stockpile of wheat pennies.
The service started with Hot Rod Lincoln and ended with Free Bird. We had plenty of tears and laughs along the way. The service was continued at the farm, Jack Daniels in attendance. They joked that Ronnie was cremated so he wouldn’t have to attend his own funeral. He never did like being out in public.
I’ll miss you ol’ buddy, and I’ll see ya later. 🍻
You ask me what I'm doing
But if you'd think you'd already know
I'm watching the world wake up
From my porch
I'm admiring the sparkle of the dew in the grass like forgotten jewels
And counting birds
And listening to water drip
The locusts are gearing up
As I sip my coffee
While Chester makes his rounds
The tiny lizard darts among my flowerpots
Old Glory
At half staff
Is still proud
Not beaten
Just a little broken
For a little while
No breeze stirs her this morning
A few bees out already
Seek nectar from my petunias
I watch the chickens compete for bugs
Jerking their heads, their keen eyes zero in on their next victim
Another leaf drops from my redbuds
Traffic is increasing
As the sun gets brighter
And I suppose I should get up
But I'll miss all this
So instead I write a poem
That doesn't rhyme
That most people won't understand
And I tell you simply,
"Sittin' on my porch"
Those of you who know me well know how much I cry. I cry for little to no reason most of the time. Maybe I’m laughing so hard I cry. Maybe a song hits me just right. Maybe I’m mourning the Reese Cup I accidentally dropped on the floor. I suppose instead of Chester’s Chronicle I could do something called Amelia’s Emotions.
Today, this brought me to tears.
I couldn’t ask for better neighbors. They’re friendly, they’re respectful, they’re quiet. They wave at me if I’m sitting on the porch, they constantly consider me when it comes to the roaming of their chickens, they give me a heads up when they’re planning a get together so I’ll be prepared to party with them or leave the premises. They are entering their second harvest season and evidently their garden took on a life of its own this year. They had put a couple of containers out by the road when the squash started coming in. Today, it was a whole table.
Now, it isn’t just their generous hearts that made me a little mushy. Scott & Chasity live in my great-grandparents house. My Papaw built that house, starting with just a few rooms, and built on as his family grew. It was a bit of a mish-mash of a house, as you would expect. When Scott got down to remodeling it, he got way more than he’d anticipated. The wiring was a t-total nightmare, and the plumbing….well, it was a complete overhaul to say the least. But he persevered and he and his family have been living next door for about a year now. I’m tickled pink with them. And I’m off track.
So this piece of property that I live on was at one time much bigger. I would call it a gentleman’s farm, where my Papaw raised Charolais & Polled Herefords, pigs, chickens, hay, tobacco, and some rank ponies. He also put out an enormous garden. Those of you who are familiar where I live–that whole front field where I used to work my horses was a garden prior to my horseback riding years. So anyway, during the hottest parts of summer, that’s where you could find him, early morning and late evening, hoeing and picking produce in his straw hat and soft cotton, cornflower blue, button up shirt. I remember following him up and down the rows for ages, watching for packsaddles (it’s a stinging caterpillar that likes corn), picking beans and tomatoes by the five gallon buckets, and reaching for cucumbers that he’d point to with his hoe, simultaneously drawing back the scratchy leaves. I was closer to the ground, you see. I thought I made a fine helper, but the truth was I probably slowed him down immensely.
Anyway, most of the time there was an excess of what Mamaw and Grandmother and everybody could can, plus all we could eat and give away. So he’d set him up a little table out by the road. It was nothing special, and back in those days you could drive a mile and find three or four more. 1980’s Seymour would be hard for most people to recognize today. He had a set of scales, index cards held on with a clothes pin to the front of the baskets, some bags, and a jar for money. Shopping was on the honor system. This is also how I sold my 4-H bunny rabbits. You could mostly trust people back then, and we didn’t have the luxury of sitting under a tree fanning ourselves waiting on somebody to stop and give us a quarter for two heads of cabbage. We were busy with other things, like bush hogging, or putting up hay, or canning, or working at the factory, or taking little Amy to clogging or baton or modeling lessons……or maybe fishin’.
So today, I pull up my same ol’ gravel driveway that’s been here way longer than me, and there sits a little rickety table with cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes across the surface. And a great big sign that says “FREE”.
Because my neighbors are busy with other things, like taking their kids to practice, and working, and gathering eggs from their free range chickens. The honor system might still work, but this was close enough to my 1985 home as anything that’s happened in the last twenty years. And so I had to cry. ❤️
Holidays, full moon, too much alcohol. What do these things have in common? All make for a busy night at 911 dispatch.
So it was no surprise to me that I have two friends from that past life who made a little Facebook post about it. One relived a traumatizing suicide call and the other just cautioned us to be careful this weekend. I look for more posts from other former coworkers soon. You know, a ripple effect as we all think about our own experiences behind the headset. Holidays always bring out the crazy in people, and the call volume is definitely up. And therefore, the memories. Of course I have my own demons, and ghosts of calls that rattle in my head from time to time. If you could hear the screaming, you would understand why I’ll never swing my leg over another motorcycle. If you could hear the incessant ringing, you’d know why I exercise extreme caution at the Pleasant Hill and Chapman Highway intersection. And if you could hear the gasping sobs, you’d know why I am so adamantly against narcotics.
You see, when you do something stupid, and you pay for it with your life, it doesn’t just affect you. That’s a very selfish thought. Of course it affects your family, your friends, the people you work with. But it also affects the paramedics who work your body, the police who have the grueling task of interviewing witnesses, the firefighters who establish command, and the first responders. It affects the innocent bystanders who were witness to your idiocy. Its a ripple effect that never stops. I left dispatch in 2007 and some of those calls still haunt me. I guess they will for life. And I didn’t even see them with my own two eyes, I only heard them. Sometimes calls only last a few seconds, sometimes they last over thirty minutes. And like I said, some last a lifetime. It’s a rarity when you get to find out what happened afterwards. Sometimes you wish you didn’t.
A few of our dispatchers have been there since this county gained a 911 center in year 2000. So a little over two decades. That’s a lot of kids prank calls, domestic disputes, cows in the road, reckless drivers, fights at the Walmart, drunk and disorderlies in Gatlinburg, and MVA’s (motor vehicle accidents). That’s a lot of brush fires, house fires, tire fires in the Valley on Halloween, and chimney fires. Oh, and not to forget, “I see smoke, but I can’t tell where it’s a-comin’ from”. That’s a lot of seizures, babies being born, allergic reactions. There are heart attacks, strokes, and more often than not, just waking up dead. There are thousands of calls about bears on porches, bears in cars, bears on the road. And then the people trying to get off the mountain in the snow. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it. It’s also a lot of meals scarfed down in a rare, quiet minute. It’s sheer panic; the single worst event in the caller’s life. But for the dispatcher, it’s just another Tuesday night. Most of the time, anyway. It’s scary for the dispatchers though, when the caller can’t tell you where they are. That’s the absolute WORST. I would say the location detection is much more accurate these days, but I cannot stress enough how important it is for you to know your whereabouts at all times. You’ve got a big problem on your hands, but now you have two when you don’t know where you are.
But I tell you: dispatchers who stick with it are a rare breed, indeed. They have steel 2 inches thick for skin and a guarded heart. Sometimes they take off their headset after a particularly taxing call and go stand in the rain, smoking, staring into the distance. Or sometimes maybe they just close their eyes against the raw pain of it all. I’ve seen it. Maybe they run down the hall to the secluded bathroom to empty their soured stomach or cry into their hands and pray they don’t get another call like that tonight.
And then they come back, sit down, and plug back up. Because the phone never stops ringing. There is never a shortages of emergencies. And when it rains, it pours. It’s almost as if people wait till they know you’re busy to wave a gun in traffic, choke on food, or hit a deer. No one can understand what dispatchers go through besides the other ones who have stared so hard at that map, clenched their teeth as they heard the last words of someone in pain, and have prayed with those that are scared. Sometimes that fire’s so real you can feel the heat and sometimes you give your desk CPR to help the caller keep time. Sometimes you pace while you wait for EMS to get on scene because you know this one’s especially bad, and why does anybody choose to live out Wilhite? You work second shift, then the next night you’re on graveyard and you just swing it because you’re called to. It’s not preaching, and it’s hard to live right, but those dispatchers are out there giving it all they can.
Even now As I sit on my porch, writing this, I hear sirens. And lots of fireworks. It’s not even dark yet, nor is it the Fourth of July. So for the love of God, BE CAREFUL THIS WEEKEND. It’s not just about you. It’s the ripple that never stops.
Love from the former #7.
This is all my fault. It usually is, I don’t know why I’m surprised.
See, I had been thinking I needed to write. My mind has been all jittery lately, which is a sure sign something needs to be cut loose. But I didn’t have anything I really wanted to expound upon.
Until this morning.
I had to meet my DC & company with a folder so they wouldn’t be late for a field visit. Since I was in my personal vehicle and wouldn’t be compensated for mileage, I figured I’d stop and wash Maggie on the way back. It surely wouldn’t be an issue if I were stopping for breakfast, what’s the difference? Ten miles for ten minutes, same thing. I was planning on cleaning her up at lunch today, anyway, so two birds with one stone and all that. Look how efficient I am.
I stop over here at the carwash by Burger King. I like to hand wash, since I have a sunroof and I hear those automatic ones are hard on sunroofs, not to mention paint.
Plus, I’m a pansy. I find them terrifying.
Alright. So two of the wash bays are taped off when I pull in, which makes me a little apprehensive. I ease into the one on the end, noting it’s dry. I give myself a little optimistic word of encouragement. Maybe it’s not broken. Maybe I’m just the first person to wash their car today. I go over to the change converter and feed it my dollar. It reluctantly spits out the equivalent in quarters. All is well. I go back to the bay and begin dumping my loot. It’s obvious that this one is more expensive than the one I frequent by the house. It takes a quarter more to start and then you don’t get as much time per additional quarter. But no matter, I can hustle.
I should add here that I am in 4″ wedges. I’ll include a photo for visual proof, you can even make out some pink stain on the straps. I am sort of dressy today since some friends and I are going out tonight for my birthday. Chesapeake’s, which is a classier sort of joint, at least compared to places I typically dine.
Let me also add that my favorite color is pink, in case you didn’t already know. I like to wear pink. But I don’t want to BE pink.
Ok, so I’ve deposited the required five quarters. The wand roars to life, and I breathe a sigh of relief. So I sink the rest of my stash. Who can wash their car in two and a half minutes, anyway? I take hold of the wand and it’s like a charged fire hose. Fine by me, pressure is a good thing. I get Mags all saturated and turn the dial to foam brush. She needs a good scrubbin’; the soap wand ain’t gonna do it. Not much soap is being generated, and I notice where the apparatus is joined to the hose, there is a significant amount of duct tape. I mentally shrug and keep after it with the brush and miniscule bubble production.
Suddenly, there’s a pop followed by an angry hiss. I turn, and am greeted by a fountain of hot pink foam squirting to every corner of downtown Sevierville. I’m pretty sure the Dolly statue at the courthouse got drenched. My eyes bugged out and I froze, considering my options. I couldn’t get by with the soap wand, of that I was certain. Better just lay in there. Decision made, I scrubbed faster as pink soap oozed and fizzed around me, puddling on my car, the brick walls, the concrete floor. It was like that old movie, The Blob, where the mass grows and slides over everything in its path. I waded through piles of the pink goop as geysers shot forth even more, drops hitting my face and collecting in my hair. It was too late to turn back now.
When I turned 21, me and a couple of friends celebrated on the strip in Knoxville. We were pretty tame, by most peoples’ standards…sure, there were tequila shots, a few random strangers, a few drinks in a hot tub quickly followed by a resurrection of everything I had consumed in the last sixteen hours. What there wasn’t was foam dancing. Oh, it was available, and fun, and I wanted to, but everybody thought that would be a terrible idea (although why the hot tub was never entered their minds). So. Twenty years and three hundred and sixty-four days later, I got to foam dance.
Alone.
With no music.
In a car wash.
Sober.
But back to the situation at hand. I was torn between rage that I was being coated in bumble gum colored soap and a waste of five dollars, not to mention the potential destruction of clothes, versus the fact that this was a quintessential Amy Event and I might as well laugh. So laugh I did, catching the attention of everybody in the parking lot of the gas station, the Burger King drive-thru, and probably the guys in hard hats constructing the firehall across the road. I wanted to take pictures, but time was a-tickin’ and I’d already wasted enough quarters on this colossal mistake. So I continued to scrub, trying to make the squirting foam work to my advantage while also avoiding the worst spurts.
I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve seen a LOT. Yes, indeed, I’ve been to two goat ropin’s and a World’s Fair, truly. But in the end, it’s just soap, and my car wound up fairly clean. All’s well that ends well. I have come back to the office and scoured myself the best I can without a shower. Pink stains remain on my shirt, but luckily it’s a pink flower pattern, anyway. My hands are still pink, and one ankle just won’t come clean. But it’s alright, I have a pinkish complexion, anyway. Maybe I can get by with appearing sunburned. Luckily, my pants are a dark khaki color so the splotches are nearly undetectable. Otherwise, I guess I look about as good as I always do. I’m just gonna tell everybody I got some watercolor tattoos.
Moral of the story: thoroughly inspect all apparatus prior to using. Kinda like checking for toilet paper in public restrooms. If you get a bad feeling, walk away.
Or heck, just go with it. It might make for a good story!
I have wished for
Skinnier legs
Perfect vision
Clearer skin
Better math skills
A flatter stomach
Straight hair
Longer hair
Less hair
More manageable hair all around
Or at least no frizz
I have wished for
A less demanding job
A windfall of money
A helicopter
For things I've already procured
I have wished for
Sunny skies
And rainy days
A broken heart to mend
Different endings
A dog to live longer
Better barbeque sauce
No speeding ticket
As I topped 100
I have wished for
Island vacations
No snakes
More comfortable shoes
A meeting with Sturgill Simpson
A phone call
And to simply go home
I have wished for
People to change
People to stay the same
People to stay
People to go
People to disappear
To forget
And forgive
I have wished for many things
Some I got
Some I prayed for
Some I worked for
Some that aren't within my reach
But that never kept me from wishing
For one more thing
And I hope
Wishes are like pennies
That they turn up
Just when you need one
