Laurence Overmire - Tribute lyrics

My Father stands tall in my mind You'd never know he was half-crippled Stricken by polio in his younger days Never mentioned it Though it must have been painful Pain was just something you had to get through “Don't fret the small stuff, ” my Dad would say. Perhaps he knew something we didn't know Saw his best friend laid out on the deck of a ship Flag-draped corpses to litter the sea Nineteen Forty-Five it was Kamikaze flyers burst out of the sun Exploded in fire Torpedoed their honor in a final desperate sacrifice To some un-holy God The burning Bunker Hill Lit like a funeral pyre upon a Viking sea And young Dad, in the blackened decks below Gasped for short life's breath A coffee soaked rag Pressed to his lips Made his way through the dark, twisted bowels of the ship Past the screaming souls of the unlucky many Till day's light opened in sky before him… Taps never sounds So sad a note As to a survivor Who cannot fathom his sentence to life When his brave comrades lie unjustly charged To d**h and the cold sea And had but the hand of the fatal clock been just a Tick or two off He might have been where they were. Yeah my Dad was the kind of guy who'd stop and Help a motorist at the side of a road Or if he found a dollar just sitting on the floor It wouldn't go into his pocket, but straight to Lost and Found He never made much money, never had a Cadillac I guess he believed in something else, something kind of Hard to buy A life of the mind and the spirit Understanding among men All races, all creeds Working, building Together. Some men build mansions ornamented gold Some build monuments, proud testament to fame And some men build much smaller things Things you cannot touch or see Like honor, justice, integrity And love. Yet these things I have felt and seen Pa**ed in wisdom from father to son And I only hope my children's children Shall find the same in me.