Harry Chapin - 30,000 Pounds of Bananas

“It was just after dark when the truck started down the hill that leads into Scranton Pennsylvania. Carrying thirty thousand pounds of bananas. Carrying thirty thousand pounds (hit it Big John) of bananas. He was a young driver, just out on his second job. And he was carrying the next day’s pasty fruits for everyone in that coal-scarred city where children play without despair in backyard slag-piles and folks manage to eat each day about thirty thousand pounds of bananas. Yes, just about thirty thousand pounds (scream it again, John) . He passed a sign that he should have seen, saying “shift to low gear, a fifty dollar fine my friend.“ He was thinking perhaps about the warm-breathed woman who was waiting at the journey’s end. He started down the two mile drop, the curving road that wound from the top of the hill. He was pushing on through the shortening miles that ran down to the depot. Just a few more miles to go, then