DAllas Frazier, E. Montgomery

My drifting memory goes back to the Spring of '43
When I was just a child in Mama's arms
My daddy ploughed the ground
And prayed that someday he might leave
This run down mortgaged Oklahoma farm

Then one day I heard my Daddy saying to my Mamma
That he had finally saved enough to go
Well California was his dream of Paradise for he had seen
Pictures in a magazine that told him so

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California cotton fields
When labor camps were filled with worried men with broken dreams
California cotton fields
As close to wealth as Daddy ever came

Almost everything we had was sold or left behind
From my Daddy's plough to the fruit that Mamma canned
Yes some folks came to say farewell
And to see what all we had to sell
Some just came shake my Daddy's hand

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Yeah the Model A was loaded down and California bound
But the change it looked just four days away
But the only change that I remember seeing in my Daddy
Was when his dark hair turned to silver gray

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THE SELDOM SCENE - Live at the Cellar Door