The Ballad Of Patty Russell A Recitation By Gerry Hubbard

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The Ballad Of Patty Russell  A Recitation By Gerry Hubbard

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.