Paperback Writer

I'm posting another one of Jerry Mosley's stories for all to enjoy. Jerry and I grew up together in South Dakota. I think that our friendship must have started in the pre-earth life for we are truely kindred spirits. I wish everyone could have a friend like Jerry. He is one of the greatest men I know and he has been a loyal friend and older brother to me. (He's a month and a half older than me.) Jerry credits me for shaping his life by sharing the gospel with him but he has shaped my life even more by allowing me the opportunity of sharing the gospel with him. Thanks Jerry for your love and brotherhood.


PAPERBACK WRITER OR THE GREAT CATTLE STAMPEDE
By Gerald F. Mosley

On one of our amazing outings in the Black Hills of South Dakota, we had an unusual experience. It was the habit of my friend Worthy Glover to borrow his dad’s black and white Nash Rambler and go off on a Saturday afternoon in the Fall with a couple of his buddies and try to discover the meaning of life in some new and interesting way.

The Rambler was a good name for the car because it did plenty of rambling. On the particular day I have in mind we….Worthy Glover, Pat Ryan, and I scraped together some money for gas and after fueling up the Rambler we headed for the Southern Hills. Did I say we scraped together money for gas? I think this time as on many other occasions Worthy played enabler to his usual following of freeloaders. I think he anteed up the all of gas money himself.

The Rambler was the car Worthy’s dad used for public address and advertising in the local communities of Lead and Deadwood, Spearfish, Belle Fourche, Sturgis, Newell and Vale over hill and dale. He had the car set up with a pair of large metal all-weather loudspeakers that he could use to advertise various events of the local area. He would drive through a community like an ice cream truck playing music and announce to the audience in a three or four city block area what they should plan to attend without fail or dire consequences would befall them for their slacking. Children would run out of their houses to investigate the commotion and like a pied piper they would follow him down the street to assuage their curiosity.

Worthy got involved with this enterprise after he got his driver’s license and that may have explained why he had gas money and his freeloader friends did not. The car had a turntable that would play vinyl records (who knows what those are anymore?) and we who got to go on these expeditions would get to play music, loud music, as we drove down the road. All the car lacked by modern standards was a really good sub-woofer.

On this particular day our repertoire included a recording by the famous Beatles. This is wikipedia: Take note of the 1966 references. This is no doubt year the we had the adventure I am recounting.

Paperback Writer
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“Paperback Writer”

Single by The Beatles
B-side
"Rain"
Released
30 May 1966 (U.S.)10 June 1966 (UK)
Format
7"
Recorded
Abbey Road13 April 1966
Genre
Rock
Length
2:18
Label
Parlophone R5452 (UK)Capitol 5651 (U.S.)
Writer(s)
Lennon/McCartney
Producer
George Martin
The Beatles singles chronology
"We Can Work It Out" / "Day Tripper"(UK-1965)---"Nowhere Man"(US-1965)
"Paperback Writer"(1966)
"Eleanor Rigby" / "Yellow Submarine"(1966)
"Paperback Writer" is a 1966 pop rock song recorded and released by The Beatles. Credited to Lennon/McCartney, but written primarily by Paul McCartney, the song was released as the A-side of their eleventh single. The single went to the number one spot in the United States, Britain, West Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Norway. Written in the form of a letter from an aspiring author to a publisher, "Paperback Writer" was the first UK Beatles single that was not a love song (though "Nowhere Man", which was a single in the U.S., was their first album song released with that distinction). On the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, "Paperback Writer"'s two-week stay at number one was interrupted by Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night".
"Paperback Writer" was one of the last new songs by The Beatles to be featured in concert, being included on their 1966 tour. A Michael Lindsay-Hogg directed promotional film was shot 20 May 1966 at Chiswick House, London for BBC-TV's Top of the Pops and broadcast June 9, the day before the single's UK release.[1] The video was broadcast in the U.S. on The Ed Sullivan Show in the late spring.
Although the song was never included in any original Beatles album, it was included in several compilation albums:
A Collection of Beatles Oldies... but Goldies (1966)
Hey Jude/The Beatles Again (1970)
The Beatles 1962-1966 (Red Album) (1973)
Past Masters, Volume Two (1988)

Now to return to the tale:

Highway 385 ends in the town of Pluma, South Dakota. The other end is in some godforsaken place in Texas I think. We were headed south. Somewhere in the vicinity of Pactola reservoir we made a turn toward Hill City and Custer. Our intent was to visit Mt. Rushmore the “Shrine of Democracy.” We were as patriot as the next bunch of teenagers I guess, but we took the wonderful testament in stone to the four Presidents altogether too much for granted.

We were on a stretch of highway somewhere near the Needles Highway, somewhere near Mt. Rushmore when we entered a very large circular bend in the road. The road, a two-lane paved mountain highway made a near full circle around a pasture certainly four hundred yards in diameter. The pasture was fenced with steel fence posts, which were strung with three strands of barbed wire. Within the pasture was a herd of cattle. A nice little herd of black and white cows were on the far side of the pasture grazing peacefully on the grass and wildflowers. They were minding their own business not a care in the world, when their peace was shattered by an otherworldly sound coming from the far side of their pasture. They raised their heads to take note of this strangeness and heard the approach of the black and white rambler bellowing like a herd bull. The black and white cows long bereft of a herd bull and all of them feeling a little frisky, began to dash, quite literally in our direction. The black and white rambler bellowing at the top of its amplifier was playing the lilting strains of……..Paaaaper Baaack Wriiiiiiter, Paperback writer…...

We stared in amazement at the onslaught of the cows. Surely they had designs on us. (most likely they had designs on the bellowing black and white “bull.”) Worthy laughed nervously and hit the gas. The Nash Rambler accelerated and zipped around the near 360-degree turn. The cows hell-bent for leather to reach us altered their course and turned mid pasture to intercept us yet again!

Paperback WriterDear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?It took me years to write, will you take a look?Based on a novel by a man named LearAnd I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer,Paperback writer.It's the dirty story of a dirty manAnd his clinging wife doesn't understand.His son is working for the Daily Mail,It's a steady job but he wants to be a paperback writer,Paperback writer.Paperback writer
And again the cows followed our progress around the great circle of the pasture. Their udders wagging beneath their tails, their eyes red with passion toward the bellowing bull! Tongues hanging precariously from their mouths with the exertion of the chase, they huffed steaming breaths into the chill air.

We knew the meager barbed wire would not contain the cows’ amorous intent. Worthy laughed again in mock hysteria and punched it again! We rounded the pasture with mere seconds to spare as the cows screeched to a halt back at the place where they had begun. Breathing heavily we and the cows slowly regained composure as the Rambler vanished into the distance. I looked over my shoulder and I swear I saw disappointment in the eyes of those cows. Pat, and Worthy and I narrowly escaped with our lives. I hate to imagine what could have happened to the little Rambler.

(It's a thousand pages, give or take a few,I'll be writing more in a week or two.I can make it longer if you like the style,I can change it round and I want to be a paperback writer,Paperback writer.If you really like it you can have the rights,It could make a million for you overnight.If you must return it, you can send it hereBut I need a break and I want to be a paperback writer,Paperback writer.Paperback writerPaperback writer - paperback writerPaperback writer - paperback writer.)

Thanks again Jerry. I'll have to look through my old pictures to see if I can find one of the old black and white Rambler to post later. To family and friends...Jerry has written a couple of more stories that I'll be posting later and he says he has some more in the works. Hope everyone enjoys them as much as I do.