I hadn’t heard the song in months.  It’s on one of those CD’s I keep in the car and play only when I am on a serious road trip.  It’s been a good while since I’ve enjoyed one of those.

But that didn’t keep this sign on a building in Lake Park, FL, from hitting me right between the eyes this afternoon as I meandered my way back home from a short paddle on the Loxahatchee River up in Jupiter.

The song?  “A Better Place to Be,” of course.  One of those great poems set to music by a songwriter I have long enjoyed.  My music tastes were set in stone decades ago, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Seeing the sign today pushed any other thoughts out of my brain and I was left with this:  “I am the midnight watchman down at Miller’s Tool and Die. And I watch the metal rusting, and I watch the time go by.”

Harry Chapin was born in 1942 and died in a car accident in 1981.  If you’re of a certain age, just say out loud, “It was rainin’ hard in Frisco……”  and it will all come screaming back.

And for a look at some of what Harry Forster Chapin left behind go here.