FIRST PLACE WINNER, FOLK CATEGORY, 2006 Songwriters of Wisconsin International Songwriting Contest. Autobiographical childood sketch, set in Kure Beach NC.

True story...autobiographical. Describes a year I lived at Kure Beach, NC. It was just my mother and me most of that year, and times were very tough (we were very poor), but I remember being happy somehow in spite of it all. Yes, we really had 26 cats and

Ten years old in ?74 in a run down shack with a bathroom on the porch
Free school lunch and hand-me-downs and a two-hour ride on the school bus into town
But a view of the ocean from my window
I loved to watch the tide just come and go, there alone

Bought a fishing pole at the five-and-dime...Never caught a fish, but I loved to throw that line
Sittin? on the pier in the salty air, spinning daydreams to pass the time
And I rode my yellow bike on that beach road
Never thought about where I might go...I just rode

Riding, flying, on that road
Laughing, smiling, all alone
Living poor, but living free
Happy on that yellow bike on that road beside the sea

Hibernating in my room with my forty-fives and AM radio
Leaving all the world behind, never wanting more than just that time alone
The nighttime brought its dark and bitter haze
But oh, how I loved those daydream days by the sea

I wonder why I just can?t understand why I?m sad that I was happy then
Do I have such a better life today that I?ll never have that bliss of yesterday?

Twenty-six cats, and two hamsters, the air thick with ten thousand fleas
Waiting for that monthly check to buy one week?s worth of groceries
But I don?t think that occurred to me life wasn?t all that it should be...we just lived

Riding, flying, on that road
Laughing, smiling, all alone
Living poor, but living free
Happy on that yellow bike on that road beside the sea