South Boston

She comes down from Yellow Mountain
On a dark flat land she rides
On a pony she named Wildfire
With a whirlwind by her side
On a cold Nebraska night

Do you remember this classic song from the '70s? It is titled Wildfire, about a girl who dies in a blizzard while searching for her horse. Sung by Michael Murphey, who was pretty much a one-hit wonder. Can you hear it?

She ran calling Wildfire!
She ran calling Wildfire!
She ran calling Wildfire!

I was on one of those three-hour rides between Virginia and North Carolina this afternoon--the drive that has become so mundane that I usually load my ipod with books and podcasts to keep me occupied. This afternoon, though, I was just scanning the radio dial when I heard the opening notes to this song, and I stopped. Instanteously I was transported to the house where my family lived when I was a teenager, and I was lying on my single bed, holding the microphone to my cassette tape player near the FM radio speaker, waiting for the DJ to play my request...Wildfire.

Oh they say she died one winter
When there came a killin' frost
And the pony she name Wildfire
Busted down his stall
In a blizzard he was lost

Isn't it amazing how a memory can do that to you? As the song played, I reached for pen and paper and wrote a reminder to myself to download it to my ipod. It would be the perfect addition to my "favorites" collection (alongside David Cassidy and Carole King).

By the dark of the moon I planted
But there came an early snow
There's been a hoot owl howlin' by my window now
For six nights in a row
She's coming for me I know
And on Wildfire we're both gonna go

On these many trips between Virginia and North Carolina, I have passed several exits to South Boston. And I always believed that the closing lines to this song said:

On wildfire we're gonna ride, oh
We're gonna leave South Boston behind
Get these hard times right on out of our minds
Riding Wildfire

So, today, the mundane trip took on a new interest as I convinced myself that I had a few extra minutes to check out South Boston. As I approached Danville, I took the first South Boston exit, and the road signs indicated it was 29 miles away. Well, that was a little more of a detour than I truly wanted to take, but the adventure was already in control. As I exited the city limits of Danville, there were rolling hills, beautiful homes in the distance, and many horse farms. I could just picture the blizzard, the barn, the beautiful pony, and the girl getting lost in the snow. I was trying to maintain a reasonable speed limit, but I was also quite excited to be visiting this special place mentioned in the closing lines of this haunting song.

With every mile I traveled, though, the horse farms disappeared--one by one--and the rolling hills became flat land, until I felt like I wasn't in Virginia anymore. On the horizon I couldn't see Yellow Mountain; I had never even heard of Yellow Mountain. But I could see South Boston, and I was quite excited about perusing its countryside and quaint city streets only a few miles ahead.

Now, for any of you who may hold South Boston near and dear to your heart, I am pre-empting this paragraph with an apology. I am sorry, but South Boston was a major disappointment. I had driven 29 miles off the beaten path to visit this mystical place mentioned in the closing lines of my favorite song from the '70s only to find a deteriorating downtown, a Sheets gas station, and a few other strip shopping centers. If there is a historic or quaint part of South Boston (and I'm sure there is), I didn't find it. I also didn't find any semblance of a horse farm where Wildfire could have escaped his barn. All in all, it was quite a disappointing trip.

During the round trip to South Boston and the tour I took of its city and outer limits, I had spent a lot of time and a lot of gas and was driving home very disappointed. At one time I had even entertained living in South Boston, i.e., the place made famous by Michael Murphy's song. But, based on what I had witnessed today, that would not be happening.

When I finally got home, I started working through my to-do list--a part of which was downloading the song Wildfire. And, as I am a creature of habit (some would say OCD, but isn't that a bit harsh?), here's the "download music" routine: Download complete, play song, go to lyricsondemand to follow lyrics with song (and sing along if I'm in the mood). Imagine my surprise when I realized that for almost thirty years I have misunderstood the closing lines to the song. It wasn't about South Boston--especially South Boston, Virginia. Duh, "she comes down Yellow Mountain . . . on a cold Nebraska night." The actual lyrics are:

On wildfire we're gonna ride, oh
We're gonna leave sod-bustin' behind
Get these hard times right on out of our minds
Riding Wildfire

Sod-bustin' not South Boston. Oh . . . well, that changes everything.