Hello forum members. This is a song that is mostly true. I grew up in a small suburb which is now part of the Silicon Valley. The area was pretty quiet then. Fortunately, the topography was such that the neighborhood could not be built in the normal fashion. There were gullies, big hills, and small canyons through which streets were interwoven. It was a wonderful place to grow up. Lundy's Lane is actually a small cul-de-sac off of my street (Bunker Hill Drive). The steep hill at the end of the cul-de-sac prevented cost effective building of homes there. Things changed when homes in the area became worth 1.5M dollars. Now those spaces, and the few with similar challenges on Bunker Hill Drive have been filled in. I drove through the old neighborhood, in truth, not the day my dad passed away, but instead on a trip to visit him at the VA hospice in Palo Alto. I thought Lundy's Lane just sounded like a good title but the song is more about the area as a whole. The buckeye trees were actually in an open field off Bunker Hill Drive which has also been filled in (we walked our dog there), and the Polywog pond was near the bottom of the street. Now, the whole area is swarmed with people, incredibly expensive, and has little of its original charm. The last verse refers to my best boyhood friend. I believe his mom still lives there but in truth I have never knocked on the door. She was a very sweet lady, a Japanese American who actually was in an internment camp for a period. It was at her house that I first had sushi, before many Americans knew what that was. I'm afraid if I saw her, my emotion would get the best of me. Still trying to work up the nerve. My mom lives in Foster City, about 6-8 miles east of that neighborhood. When I visit her, I feel like a stranger in my own land. It is heart breaking. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the song. Comments very much appreciated. Take care all.


https://soundcloud.com/gjohnson-2/lundys-lane

Lundy’s Lane

Took a drive through my old neighborhood, the day my father passed away
Just felt the need for reconnecting with my past
In this once quiet little suburb off the San Francisco Bay
I could feel the memories come flooding back

Fields with families walking dogs, streams with children catching pollywogs
Flying kites and friendly little football games
Down on Lundy’s Lane

With the advent of the internet, techies took my town by storm
Unlike justice, it seems ambition’s truly blind
When there’s lots of money to be made, opportunists swarm
And one may not recognize the place they leave behind

Where once were open fields and buckeye trees, now there’s Priuses and SUVs
My home is gone now; nothing looks the same
Down on Lundy’s Lane

I guess there’re places deep in each of us that we’re never gonna find
They elude our maps and compasses, existing only in our mind

I knocked on an old friend’s door and is mother opened up
She was frail now, and her hair was white as snow
Her eyes lit up to see me and we had a cup of tea
And tried to figure out where the time goes

We talked about the early years, shared some laughs and shared some tears
And talked about how much the world has changed
And so has Lundy’s lane


Last edited by Greg Johnson; 11/20/16 07:03 PM.