A Darker Shade Of Blue:  The Ballad Of Patty Russell

Leonard Haskin worked a farm on top of steep Bull Hill In a school bus in the winter we all got a special thrill The road was dirt and narrow, in the winter we used chains And the muddy ruts would swerve a car in springtime heavy rains. One winter night in ‘54, we held a sleigh ride there Boys and girls from school and church all braved the cold night air All of us made several slides, the girls on top of boys Enjoying all the bliss and glee of adolescent joys My first ride with my girlfriend, we almost hit a car Parked there by Miller’s driveway, we didn’t miss by far When we walked back up chilled but thrilled from that breathtaking ride We saw a crowd by that black car parked over on the side. It seems the couple after us could not see clear in front And hit right underneath that car , the young girl bore the brunt We saw them pull a limp girl out, she didn’t move at all Patty Russell, sixteen years, who’d joined our school that fall Then Tommy Haskin came in view with lacerated head Tough as nails and standing tall, his pants & shirt blood-red Someone called Doc Tepfer, he drove in from Grand Gorge I remember him in a rumpled suit it seemed he always wore They loaded Patty in Doc’s car across the seat in back That pretty girl all crumpled up like something in a sack The next day in the high school, it was as beneath a pall No horseplay in the classrooms, it was silent in the halls All us kids were shocked and dazed and all our feelings numb When we realized how suddenly an almost-death could come They took Pat first to Stamford, there was nothing they could do She stayed awhile in the Gilboa Flats, Hub’s house there, that was blue Though paralyzed, she married and bore a handsome boy She wrote and painted with her mouth, brought lots of people joy Tommy Haskin, well again, joined up in the Marines Came home from Okinawa, into the local scene And I guess us kids got over it as young folks always will But it always comes back clear as glass when I think about Bull Hill That winter night, the cold crisp air, the crunching of the snow And how their world completely changed, I guess we’ll never know What could have been for both of them before things fell apart And were there happy endings from such unhappy starts And when I ponder that cold night and what they both went through It seems I see this damned old world in a darker shade of blue.