The song’s lyrics revolve around an older married couple who decide to leave their life behind by packing their things and going driving, without telling their children about their plans. Their car breaks down during the trip, forcing them to continue on foot. The chorus expresses the idea that the couple are achieving happiness by losing touch with the world, even though they may never see their home again.
Fastball frontman Tony Scalzo came up with the idea for the song after reading articles that described the June 1997 disappearance of an elderly married couple, Lela and Raymond Howard from Salado, Texas, who left home to attend the Pioneer Day festival at nearby Temple, Texas, despite Lela’s Alzheimer’s and Raymond recently recovering from brain surgery. They were discovered two weeks later, dead, at the bottom of a ravine near Hot Springs, Arkansas, hundreds of miles off their intended route. The authorities who investigated the accident believed that Lela, who was driving the car, was trying to locate a place where she had once vacationed.
ELDERLY COUPLE FOUND DEAD IN CAR TWO WEEKS AFTER TRIP TO FESTIVAL
By From Tribune News Services
Chicago Tribune July 14, 1997
DALLAS, TEXAS — A couple who left their east Texas home for a fiddling festival 15 miles away were found dead in their car in Arkansas, a wrenching end to two weeks of searching by police and relatives.
Lela, 83, and Raymond Howard, 88, apparently became disoriented and eventually drove their Oldsmobile off the road near Hot Springs, Ark., more than 350 miles from their home, police said. Their bodies were found Saturday in their car, hidden in dense brush.
Rhonda Alford, 43, one of Mrs. Howard’s five grandchildren, said the woman’s 57-year-old son had implored her to let him make the drive from Salado to Temple on June 28. “He was begging her, `Let me take you,’ ” Mrs. Alford said. “She said, `No, we know where to go. We go every year.’ “
“They were pretty much inseparable,” Cathy Drake, 53, said Sunday of her father and the woman he married in 1986 after both had lost spouses. “It was one of these kinds of relationships you don’t really see happen that late in life. I think they actually fell in love with each other.”
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Oh, touching. Two demented old people die miserably alone at the bottom of some God-forsaken shithole ravine in Arkansas. I want to go at 105 in a 5 star hotel with an 18 year old hooker, drunk and crazy. I will insure myself so my kids are rollong in money when I hump myself to death.
The best laid plans….
Trust me…you will not get to decide unless you commit suicide.
Not hardly a shithole but scenic highway 7 where it meets highway 5 north of Hot Springs in the Ouachita Mountains as I have driven by where they left the road many times. A “t”intersection which they turned into a 4 way the hard way.
“The Rockefeller Exit”
Dying in the saddle.
I agree, but make mine a 28 y-o cute, frustrated wife. Big boobs would be nice, but not necessary.
105 and humping? Uh huh.
I have a better one. This must have been around 1980. My dad and I had hiked up Mount Whitney from the west (Mineral King trailhead) and once in Whitney Portals we hitched a ride down into Lone Pine. When we got to Lone Pine we realized we were there during this annual western movie fest and all the motel rooms were occupied. Our plan was to stay overnight and get my mom to drive up from OC and pick us up the next day but it became apparent we would have to camp in the park (illegally).
During the early evening in the park, this elderly couple approached us and asked us if they could hitch a ride up 395 to Bridgeport. We explained we didn’t have a car but they settled down at the picnic table to strike up a conversation. Come to find out, this childless couple had worked their entire lives at low paying menial jobs and had only their Social Security pensions to live on. But their whole lives they had dreamed of travel, so in their 70s they decided to live a vagabond’s life and they just went and did it – hitch hiking from one place to the next, visiting the northern USA in the summer and the southern USA in the winter, pitching in for gasoline here and there, sleeping out rough, staying at a motel every now and then to wash up. Apparently they had been at this for about 6 or seven years and planned to keep at it until either their health failed or they died. What a way to go out.
Many years ago I took my kids to see the movie Up! and immediately thought of this couple. I hope they experienced everything they had hoped for.
An anti-family song. How precious.
The kids were over 18.
Touching story. Shame the accompanying video was a waste.
That video, that ‘song’ (if you can call it that), the singer?? That’s the worst piece of shit I’ve seen in a long time.
Beautiful . They died together. On an adventure. Outside the wretched claws of the nefarious American Mafia healthcare system. Fuck a MD.
~I like the tune, having heard it before on radio a few times.
Never heard of Fastball, though.
Mistakenly thought it was Dylan’s kid’s band The Wallflowers.
Never knew the back story about The Way.
Hell, if we judged every tune by the story behind it or by its lyrics,
we’d thumbs down some good ones.
Poor vids can taint a halfway decent tune.
Have seen that happen often.
Let the music do the talking, and all that.
With that said, I like this one too.
Thanks, Farmer. I’ve heard that song dozens of times and never knew the backstory.
Good song. I always liked Fastball….but they just kinda went away. No more hits.
Here’s one that may be quite apropos in the near future:
Also, there is a very good movie with Martin Sheen and Emilio Esteves called “The Way.” Makes a person want to walk the “Camino de Santiage” one day.