My Song Memories
Number
27 and its accompanying memory
Cleveland,
1963, had nothing to do with Boll Weevils. So why does this song take me back
to my days of reading electric meters for the Illuminating Company in Cleveland?
Well rain, sleet, or snow, we meter readers had to go, and read those meters.
On this particular day, I remember I had a downtown area to read. I never
did like reading commercial business meters. Usually you had to go down into
some grungy, filty basement, swarming with rats, dirt floors, just a nasty
job. But on this day, to make it worse, it was chilly and the rain was pouring
down. I kept trying to read one store after another, ducking in and out of
the rain. However, during one particular burst, it was coming down just too
hard to continue so I ducked into a door front area and waited. Someone was
playing some loud music and the song just happened to be the Boll Weevil Song
by Brook Benton. I liked the song and thought about those poor boll weevil's
and what they might have had to do if they got caught out in a torrential
downpour like this. The song played a couple of times while I was waiting.
Finally, it slowed down enough for me to continue on but I kept singing and
humming that darn song. I never did figure out what a boll weevil was. Figured
they were like our cockroaches in Cleveland. But oh how I remember that day.
Back to my Top 40 list
Number 27 and its accompanying memory
Cleveland, 1963, had nothing to do with Boll Weevils. So why does this song take me back to my days of reading electric meters for the Illuminating Company in Cleveland? Well rain, sleet, or snow, we meter readers had to go, and read those meters. On this particular day, I remember I had a downtown area to read. I never did like reading commercial business meters. Usually you had to go down into some grungy, filty basement, swarming with rats, dirt floors, just a nasty job. But on this day, to make it worse, it was chilly and the rain was pouring down. I kept trying to read one store after another, ducking in and out of the rain. However, during one particular burst, it was coming down just too hard to continue so I ducked into a door front area and waited. Someone was playing some loud music and the song just happened to be the Boll Weevil Song by Brook Benton. I liked the song and thought about those poor boll weevil's and what they might have had to do if they got caught out in a torrential downpour like this. The song played a couple of times while I was waiting. Finally, it slowed down enough for me to continue on but I kept singing and humming that darn song. I never did figure out what a boll weevil was. Figured they were like our cockroaches in Cleveland. But oh how I remember that day.
Back to my Top 40 list