an Elgin watch and a Porter suit.
He hustled back for fifty years
and worked the railroad line.
From overalls and cotton fields,
to spit shine shoes and rumbling steel.
His life was made to roll on rails
His old Pat never got so far
He's 20 miles from a sharecrop farm
While Hewley he's seen shooting stars
He loved the gentle rolling sway
The sound a lonesome whistle made
He knew his calling from the day
That he first saw a train
Hewley was a railroad man
From Portland to Miami sand
He knew that in this great big land
There's nothing like a train
He'd tell the children stories
how the rails were laid by hand
They knew his name from coast to coast,
knew he was a railroad man,
knew he was a railroad man
Spent his off days at the yard,
knew he'd change in there by heart
They could have taken one apart,
but they never let him try
He said, we all have a gift to you
The engineer may get folks there,
but me, I make them smile
He always spoke about the time
Woodrow Wilson rode the line
He tipped him twenty dollars gold
when someone laid a quarter in his hand
Got put in here to ride the trains,
Muley was a railroad man,
Julie spent his golden years
wheels and gears to her taker for the train museum
at the Dallas County Fair.
He'd tell you how the whistles blew,
the engine roared and the cinders flew
he just knew they'd still
Lived to be a hundred -four,
died in Fort Smith, Arkansas
Laid the rest in his porter's cap,
a double eagle for his fare
When I step off heaven's train,
he'll have my bags in hand
With a smile and a yes sir right on time,
Muley was a railroad man,
Muley was a railroad man,
