Bad, bad Leroy Brown!

I had the window in my car down the other day when I pulled up to a red light. The sun was beaming and I felt glad to be out and enjoying myself on a bright windy day. I was tapping the wheel, drumming to the music on the radio, and enjoying the day. Right on cue, the 1973 hit “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” came on the radio.

I was instantly taken back to life as a kid. In my mind I was a young kid again trying to be cool enough to hang with my big brothers at our next door neighbor Boyd’s house. They would regularly get together with Boyd and hang on his porch swing. I didn’t get to hang with them much. They were older and I represented everything they were running from: listening to mom and being younger.

On this day, for some strange reason, I was allowed to hang out with them. I was allowed to stay and not be banished with my tail between my legs to our house.

We sat on the swing and drank from cold coke bottles. We listened to the radio and watched the cars go up and down our street. They guessed who was coming up the street just by the sound of their engine. They boasted about which car they were going to have when they got older. They made fun of Ford and Chevy cars and vice versa. Their jokes were bad: “Ford stands for fix or repair daily” and “My pet turtle is still faster than any Chevy.” I told you they were bad. Mainly, they were just kids goofing off.

And yes, I was in heaven.

When folk and rock singer Jim Croce’s song came on the radio, we didn’t understand much of the words, but we liked that it talked about how tough Leroy was. We wanted to be tough too. Croce’s inspiration for the song was a friend he met in the Army. The song peaked at number one on the American charts. It was still on the charts when he died in a plane crash later in the year.

We sat on the old swing and the five or six of us yelled out:

“And it’s bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
Meaner than a junkyard dog.

And he’s bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog.”

For one little moment, I was a part of the group. When my mom yelled out for my brothers and me to come home for dinner, I cringed. I didn’t want it to end. For one minute anyway, I was let into the inner sanctum. I got to see behind the curtain.

A month or two later, we moved to another part of town. There would be no more hanging out at Boyd’s house. However, I never forgot the feeling of belonging and being just like “bad, bad Leroy Brown.”