This week commemorates the anniversaries for two legendary story songs of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Monday is June 3, the day the protagonist of Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billy Joe" discovered that Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge. And Thursday is June 6, the day the truck convoy started that inspired the famed CB-trucker song "Convoy," by C.W. McCall.
What a week!
This week competes with the 18-day period in September from Sept. 3 (the day the father of the protagonist in the Temptations' "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" died) and Sept. 21 (the night that Earth Wind and Fire reminds us to remember).
This week is worth a deeper dive, starting with Billy Joe McAllister's fatal jump off the bridge.
The story takes place on Choctaw Ridge in Mississippi and most historians believe Billy Joe likely jumped June 2, since June 3 was the day the song's protagonist's mother dropped the news of his plunge during the fateful family lunch that included black-eyed peas, biscuits and apple pie.
The song tells a sad and unclear story about the relationship between the girl in the song and Billy Joe, who liked to drop something (most likely flowers) off the bridge into the water. Did she know Billy Joe was contemplating suicide? Did he actually die? The song implies Billy's jump was fatal, but never says it explicitly.
But Monday (and perhaps Sunday), we remember Billy Joe. And the muddy waters off the Tallahatchie Bridge. And the protagonist, whose father soon died of a virus and whose brother married within a year and bought a store in Tupelo, Mississippi.
Three days later comes another major song holiday, the night that a truck driver and C.B. radio operator "Rubber Duck" started a convoy across the United States, starting just east of Los Angeles ("shaky town") on Interstate 10 with his Kenworth truck, loaded with logs
Their protest was apparently against the newly instituted 55 mph speed limit on freeways and their destination was the New Jersey shore – 3,000 miles away. What starts as three truckers ultimately becomes 1,000. They reach Flagstaff, Arizona, then Tulsa, Oklahoma before they run into trouble. They then head to Chicago, where the Illinois National Guard is called up along with armored cars and other vehicles, including tanks and jeeps. The truckers crash through and keep going to the Jersey Shore, crashing the toll booths at 98 mph.
While celebrating the convoy (and wondering if they drove into the Atlantic Ocean), we should remember something else. There's no way this ended June 6. The convoy started in Los Angeles June 6 and headed east, which means in addition to the time it takes to drive coast-to-coast (Google tells me that with today's speed limits, it would take 41 hours to drive from Los Angeles to the Jersey Shore), they lost an additional three hours due to the time zones. So if they left Los Angeles at 10 p.m. June 6 (it started "by the light of the moon," so it was after dark), they wouldn't arrive at the Jersey Shore until early June 9.
Therefore, we should commemorate Billy Joe McAllister's ill-fated jump June 2-3 and the convoy trucker's cross-country dash June 6-9.
What a week! Be sure to drop some flowers off a bridge into muddy waters, then tell someone to "let them trucker's roll, 10-4!"
Happy holidays.
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.
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