Grounded

 Grounded 

Shoes of iron and brass

It was always Otis dream to be out at the

Williston airport flying

But his grounding came in the marrying

Of a domineering Dawson

Perhaps it was not always so narrow

They tell that once Pearl was a smoker

I'm not saying

But sometimes the giving up the

Card playing 

The Saturday night dancing

The flying

Is but a long and terrible dying

Otis would come home sullen from

The Gulf station

Where the jovial jokes he was making

And silently listen

The sound of Pratt & Whitneys ringing

Over the Roloff preaching

It never quite sank in

And when the little Kelly took wings

On that Cedar Key bridge in that

Terrible Christmas of sixty-four

It all became too much for Otis

On that final day

Long before March of eighty

He topped off the Piper Cub

Checked the gauges by memory

Cut the joker wild from the deck

Did a Pelham jig

And flew off for eternity

Leaving Pearl

And the girls with

A fifty-one card pick up.