The Biker, The Blues & The Louisiana Prison Work Gang

I know you?” I immediately said no, I am not from around here. She said but you sure look like someone I know but I can’t quite remember where or when. The boss man was still over checking out the situation with the two visitors and hadn’t returned yet. The gal sitting across from me said they were a bit anxious to get out of there because the place is haunted. I said really? She said yep really. I said well I don’t see any ghosts and without missing a beat she said if you give me your wallet you can watch me disappear. We laughed, that was funny, and I don’t care who you are, a great sense of humor. I saw the boss man looking at us and soon he began to work his way back. He sat and down and asked, “What kind of BS did this one give you?” I said just something about this place being haunted. He looked dead straight into my eyes and said well that ain’t no BS, it is haunted. Everyone in these parts knows that. I asked him if he liked the blues and he said yes and asked what do you have with you? I said how about Sam Cooke doing “Working On The Chain Gang” he smiled and said well I think that song is more rock than blues and I said well not if you are a work detail maybe. He thought that was funny and barrel laughed out loud. I went to tell him that Cooke wrote the song after stopping for a smoke and a chain gang member asked him for a cigarette which is true. He passed them out to everybody that wanted one. The experience stayed with him long after he had met them. The song was released in 1960 and would go on to be Cooke’s second best seller of all time. The boss man looked up and told the inmate to go work with the others, she smiled at me and said yes sir and left immediately. I took the liberty of asking him what kind of apparitions had been reported at this road side rest. He said back when slavery was all through the south when some of the men would break free they would follow the Mississippi River north. Story goes that one of those men was shot dead over by the river bank. Since then many people have reported feeling a presence at sunset and on into the night especially truck drivers that pull in to rest. We talked a bit and then he went on with his business. As they packed up the gal that had been sitting with me smiled and waved goodbye. I did the same and sat there thinking about her quick smart ass comment regarding seeing her disappear. Odd how folks end up on the wrong side of the law and you can have this preconceived notion of what all cons are like. Then you meet one like this gal and that mental image is partially wiped out. Another song popped into my head and I looked it up and sure enough it was in my music library. The name is “I Fought The Law” sung by the Bobby Fuller Four, released in ‘66, however the song was actually written by Sonny Curtis of the Crickets and then popularized by the Bobby Fuller Four. A catchy upbeat tempo wit a lyric that announces “Breaking rocks in the hot sun, I fought the law and the law won.” The song seemed appropriate. Sort of a melancholy goodbye on this rather interesting day as I had already liked the song but now seeing what it might be like first hand but then again not cool in another.

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