IS A PUZZLEMENT

 

OOPS – a day late, but not a dollar short.

 

For years I have found myself faced with many questions – longing for answers.

 

Some answers are self-evident. Why do fools fall in love?  Well, after all, they are fools, aren’t they?

 

I have determined the answer to some questions based on history and experience. When will they ever learn? Probably never.

 

Some questions will probably never be answered. What’s it all about, Alfie? A totally unnecessary remake could shed no new light on the question.

 

With some questions only time will tell. Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm sixty-four?  I found out for me the answer is “yes”.  

 

Some are no longer relevant. Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Joe went to his “final audit” in 1999.

 

And I have given up on others. Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost over night?  Easy enough to find out – but who cares? Actually, I don’t have a “headboard” as I sleep on a convertible couch.

 

There are still questions that haunt me.

 

I, too, wonder how are things in Glocca Morra.  But I have yet to pay a visit to the Emerald Isle. 

 

I would really like to know what the mama saw. All I know is that what the mama saw it was against the law.

 

I also want to know what Billy Joe MacAllister and friend threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge when they were seen by Brother Taylor.

 

And while we are at it – I always did wonder why Mr. Baker’s secretary had to leave Harper Valley.

 

Since first writing this "bobservation" one question has been answered.  A long-time 1040 clients told me what Billy Joe MacAllister and his friend were throwing off the Tallahatchie Bridge when they were sighted by Brother Taylor.

 

Here is what Bobbie Gentry told an interviewer -

 

"It's in there for two reasons.  First, it locks up a definite relationship between Billie Joe and the girl telling the story, the girl at the table. Second, the fact that Billie Joe was seen throwing something off the bridge -- no matter what it was -- provides a possible motivation as to why he jumped off the bridge the next day."

 

I suppose that, like “what the mama saw” in the Paul Simon song, there was no specific item in mind when the song was written.

 

The song was so popular that nine years after its release, in 1976, Warner Bros adapted it into a movie, directed and produced by Max Baer, Jr (aka Jethro Bodine) and starring Glynnis O’Connor and Robby Benson. In the screenplay, and its novelization, Billy Joe kills himself after a drunken homosexual experience, and the object thrown from the bridge is the narrator's ragdoll.

 

FYI, according to Wikepedia -

 

“The song ‘Ode to Billie Joe’ was originally intended as the B-side of Gentry's first single recording, a blues number called ‘Mississippi Delta’, on Capitol Records. The original recording, with no other musicians backing Gentry's guitar, had eleven verses lasting seven minutes, telling more of Billie Joe's story. The executives realized that this song was a better option for a single, so they cut the length by almost half and re-recorded it with a string orchestra. The shorter version left more of the story to the listener's imagination, and made the single more suitable for radio airplay.”

 

But I still want to know why Mr. Baker’s secretary had to leave Harper Valley.

 

TAFN