A Phone Call

Back in the 1960's, a young man was serving his time in the US Army. During a soldier's time off, soldiers would make their way to the pay phones that were available to them.

Often times the phone calls would give inspiration to the individual soldier.

Sometimes the phone call would be of the "Dear John" variety.

A particular soldier would watch what was going on in the queue in front of him. He would see soldiers calling that someone special, only to find that they, themselves were not so special any more. He would see how broken those soldiers were afterwards. Later this particular soldier would write a song about what he saw when he waited in line for the pay phones at the post exchange.

I wrote of this person before, saying in 2011:

It is sad that Jim Croce is known mostly for his novelty songs -- he was much better that that. Many of his songs were touching.

Here is what he wrote about his experience: