Carlton
Christmas 1985 Duck pin bowling - a Maryland thing
These three pictures were taken at a nice park in Annapolis near where Carlton lived.
These three pictures were taken a week before Carlton died in 1996. We were at a July fourth celebration on the roof of the Science Center where we could see the Baltimore Inner Harbor fireworks up real close! 

He liked to smoke cigarettes, drink coke, do jig saw puzzles, paint (he was quite good), and eat ice cream. Carlton did not smile often. I'm glad I have these pictures.

John Doe No. 24

I was standing on the sidewalk in 1945 in Jacksonville, Illinois.
When asked what my name was there came no reply:
They said I was a deaf and sightless half-wit boy.
But Lewis was my name, though I could not say it:
I was born and raised in New Orleans.
My spirit was wild, so I let the river take it,
On a barge and a prayer, upstream.

Well they searched for a mother and they searched for a father,
And they searched till they searched no more.
The doctors put to rest their scientific tests
And they named me "John Doe No. 24".
And they all shook their heads in pity,
For a world so silent and dark.
Well, there's no doubt that life's a mystery,
But so too is the human heart.

And it was my heart's own perfume when the crape jasmine bloomed,
On St Charles Avenue.,
Though I couldn't hear the bells of the streetcars coming,
By toeing the track I knew.
And if I were an old man returning,
With my satchel and porkpie hat.
I'd hit every jazz joint on Bourbon,
And I'd hit everyone on Basin after that.

The years kept passing as they passed me around,
From one state ward to another.
Like I was an orphan shoe from the lost and found:
Always missing the other.
And they gave me a harp last Christmas,
And all the nurses took a dance.
But lately I've been growing listless;
I've been dreaming again of the past.

I'm wandering down to the banks of the great Big Muddy,
Where the shotgun houses stand.
I am seven years old and I feel my dad,
Reach out for my hand.
While I drew breath no one missed me,
So they won't on the day that I cease.
Put a sprig of crape jasmine with me,
To remind me of New Orleans.

I was standing on this sidewalk in 1945 in Jacksonville, Illinois.

Written by Mary Chapin Carpenter.
(Why Walk Music.)
From "Stones In The Road", 1994, Columbia Records.