Two for One

By

Lonnie Ratliff

Long before songwriting was anything more than a distant dream I had developed the habit of listening close to conversations around me and really paying attention to what was being said and trying to just build a larger story, song or movie in my own mind out of what was being said. Some of these little life segments have stuck with me to this day and some have ended up in my songs but this is the only conversation that ever developed into two songs that I am really proud of.

At the time I was working at a DX service station in Pryor, Oklahoma during the day and buying and selling cars on the side. It seems like all my life I have always had some kind of little sideline going on in addition to whatever it was I was doing to pay the bills. Anyway the man who owned the service station was Brice Wallis and like me he always had his hands in everything. In his case I think he turned his extra efforts into money and not just something else to worry about. Brice’s main job was as a post office letter carrier and his two services stations in Pryor were his sideline.

One afternoon we were not very busy at the station and Brice came by and we got to talking and he said there was this little old lady at the end of his mail route who didn’t have any family left and hardly ever got any mail but she was always waiting out on the porch when he came by on his mail route. He said she was always making him some lemonade or cookies and he could tell she just wanted some company and since hers was the last house on his route he would talk to her for a few minutes and he got into the habit of always saving back the junk mail he was supposed to hand out and he always made sure she got something if he could.

Over the years he got to know her from these little 5 minute snippets of visiting and one day he mentioned how the days were getting longer and she said, yes it’s hard to believe that such long days can turn into such short years. Even then I had enough sense to realize that was a pretty profound statement. I also had enough sense to know I didn’t have the talent yet to turn it into a song or story so I just filed it away for future use. This was probably about 1975 and around 1990 I started the song “Long Days” and soon finished it with Canadian songwriter Sharon Anderson. That in itself would have been a pretty unique songwriter story but along those same lines I remembered how my great grandmother used to always just sit and wait for the mail when I stayed with her for a few weeks when I was six years old. She would always just watch the clock and say Lonnie, that mailman is running late today. Her kids had all moved to California like so many “Okies” before them had done and I remember it would really make her day to get a letter from one of them. I also remember they didn’t write very often and I saw how sad she would get when she went through her mail and there was nothing there but a catalog or some other kind of advertisement. In my little six year old mind there was just no excuse for them to treat my grandma that way and it left a lifelong impression with me. I made it a point to keep in touch with my mom up until the day she died with a phone call every week and I would always write a short letter or send her a joke I cut out of the paper or some goofy postcard I had found. I took things from this and added to the story Brice told me about the little old lady on his mail route and came up with the second song from one story when I wrote “Seed Catalog” with my good buddy Tom Mitchell. I have always felt like in both songs we were able to simplify a pretty complex story.

"Click Yellow Speaker"  Billy Bob Shane singing Long Days

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"Click Yellow Speaker"  Erin Hay singing Long Days

Should start playing in 8 to 10 seconds after clicking on Play

Tested on Real Player & Media Player.  Works on both players

"Long Days"
(Lonnie Ratliff / Sharon Anderson)

Walter Hudson's up at daylight
A habit now of sixty some odd years
There really ain't much reason
'Cause not that much needs doing around there
Forty acres on the edge of town
He paid the bank off fifteen years ago
He buried Martha last November
And for the first time Walter's startin' to feel old

(Chorus)

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