Echoes of the Valley: A Newspaper Boy’s Song

This was Ely’s and my first recording together, done in February 2020. Ely was twelve at the time. She has always been an artist at the core, and we plan to record more when we can. I wrote this song, and it is my copyright, 2020.

I wrote this song from memories of my newspaper route in Ohio. Cold dark mornings, delivering the Dayton Daily News. Sundays meant getting up at 4 am, biking to the branch, and wrestling with a load of papers that weighed more than I could lift. The branch manager, a weight lifter, would get the panniers filled, and I’d head out into the snow. Streetlights created their own world, the falling snow drifting through them. Walking the bike, sometimes riding it, house to house, there was a stillness that’s hard to describe. Often a train whistle would echo through the Miami Valley, a sound that stayed with me.

Those mornings taught perseverance, and the strange mix of longing for a warm bed and the satisfaction of finishing the job for five dollars a week.

Ely and I recorded this as a simple early effort. The song deserves a stronger performance, and hopefully we’ll do that someday. For now, I keep it here for posterity.