Pine Barrens Song
(Maurice Ridgway, Sr.)

I left the place where I was born many years ago.
'Cause times were hard and work was scarce I had no choice but go.
But I've been back there many a time in my memory;
Of all the places that I've seen, it's there I'd rather be.

CHO: Where the scrub pine, ground oak, berry bush and sand;
They never change; they never will - pine barrens land;
The sweet may pink, curly fern and the leaves all turning green,
And the water, still runs red in the cedar, swamp streams.

Pine smoke from the wood fire blowing on the wind;
Lamplight upon the window, shining once again;
A one room school, a country store, all the folks you used to know;
Times have changed and they were gone a long, long time ago.

Wagon roads that run for miles down through the twisted pines;
Past little long forgotten towns that failed the test of time;
And some times there along the way, granite markers cold and gray
Mark the only ones who stay there in the barrens. (The pine barrens!)

From Sounds of the Jersey Pines, editor: Mike Nappa
SOF
OCT98