Family Reserve

(album: Joshua Judges Ruth - 1992)

When I saw the ambulance
Screaming down Main Street
I didn't give it a thought
But it was my Uncle Eugene
He died on October the second 1981

And my Uncle Wilbert
They all called him Skinner
They said for his younger ways
He'd get drunk in the morning
And show me the rolls of fifties and hundreds
He kept in the glove box of his old gray Impala

And we're all gonna be here forever
So Mama don't you make such a stir
Now put down that camera
And come on and join up
The last of the family reserve

Now my second cousin
His name was Callaway
He died when he'd barely turned two
It was peanut butter and jelly that did it
The help she didn't know what to do
She just stood there and watched him turn blue

And we're all gonna be here forever
So Mama don't you make such a stir
Just put down that camera
And come on and join up
The last of the family reserve

And my friend Brian Temple
He thought he could make it
So from the third story he jumped
He missed the swimming pool
Only by inches
And everyone said he was drunk

Now there was great Uncle Julius
And Aunt Annie Mueller
And Mary and Granddaddy Paul
And there was Hanna and Ella
And Alvin and Alec
He owned his own funeral hall

And there are more I remember
And more I could mention
Than words I could write in a song
But I feel them watching
And I see them laughing
And I hear them singing along

We're all gonna be here forever
So Mama don't you make such a stir
Just put down that camera
And come on and join up
The last of the family reserve