Mama Hated Diesels

Mama hated diesels so bad

I guess I knew it was something to do with Dad

The first I ever seen her cry

Was after one of them things went by

Mama hated diesels so bad

I remember hearing those semis gearing down

My mom and me, we lived right on the high grade into town

Well, I sure liked them white Freightliners

But there was something in Mama's eye

When she'd catch me watching the road

Lord, a little bitty piece of her died

Mama hated diesels so bad

I guess I knew it was something to do with Dad

The first I ever seen her cry

Was after one of them things went by

Mama hated diesels so bad

As the years passed and I grew older, Mama did too

Pretty soon she stopped singing and laughing

Why, she'd hardly even eat

And I began staying away from home on the weekdays

I wouldn't come home from school 'til way past dark

I was too busy having some kind of fun

Either messing around with some gal

Or hanging around the local truck stop

Talking to my buddies about all the big rigs

That were all the time rolling in

And talking about all the crazy places we'd never been

Like California

Well, one day the county sheriff come up to me

He said they found my mama wandering all by herself

In the middle of the highway crying

She was trying, of all things, Lord

To flag down one of them big old rigs with her pocket handkerchief

Well, that left me on my own

I got a job unloading rigs down at the local freight yard

Pretty soon I had a rig of my own

And I left my hometown on my very first run to Frisco

Well, that was three years ago today

And I ain't been back home in all that time since then

'Til now

Now it's me and the local preacher

Standing in the graveyard grass

Staring down at the highway

Watching those big boys pass

Well, he laid his hand upon me