Inspired by an ancient, lovely looking woman on the sidewalk
There are people that you never get to know
There's a lonely old, eastern European woman
Her name is Ana
She had three sons, all of them died in various wars
Her husband of 53 years passed away last June
Now her only daughter has brought her to America
She can tell tales of communists and freedom fighters, good years and bad
I paused in my car as she crossed the street with her groceries
There's a nice elderly man downtown
His name is Bill
It used to be Wild Bill in his younger days when he rode bulls in the rodeo
Then he was William when he owned his own construction company
He was Old Bill for a while when he first got lost
Now he's just Bill, walking the streets with a shopping cart.
He can tell stories of prairie whiteouts and boardroom meetings and Liza.
Oh, yes... Liza
I quickly gave Bill a dollar as I hurried into a dance club.
There's a little guy, blonde hair, blues eyes, 6 years old
His name is Duke
Mom and Dad call him John, but he really prefers Duke
You see his middle name's Wayne and he envisions himself as THE John Wayne
And everybody called John Wayne The Duke
His sees the entire world in his dad's eyes
He can tell stories of cowboys and Indians, spaceships and what a dragon can do
I stumbled a bit as Duke ran underfoot at 7-11
There's a girl in my building heading for a clinic
Her name's Sally
She spent an evening in a club and had a couple too many
Woke up the next morning in an unfamiliar apartment
Her life changed soon after when she was late at more than just getting home
She can tell tales of pain and indecision, guilt and torment
I excused myself as I passed Sally on the stairs
There are people that you never get to know
I guess it's a necessity; we can't spend an hour with every passer by,
every Samaritan, every child, every person at every table in every bar
Still...
There's a former beauty queen that lives across the river.
Her name is Velma
1937 was her year to shine
Just before the war that took her husband and left her alone
Velma lives in a small room in a nice 'home'
Someone's home, not hers
She has no family, a few friends
She can tell tales of single life and working like a man
Tales of struggling to make ends meet
How that letter came in 1942
Tales of helping neighbors in the big flood
When her house burned down leaving her with a single picture
How the tree blew down on her car
Stories of waiting tables all day then working in soup kitchens at night
How she once saw a bear in her back yard
Of volunteering in the park, of cleaning steam engines during the war
of working and saving and hoarding and losing
Stories of hatred and violence, of friendship and love
Tales of late nights and dance halls and famous contacts
Tales of seduction, erotic tales, tales of the men she played with
And of the man she loved
I met Velma one day at a senior dance class
And I took the time to find out more