The Legend of Tooley’s Road

My Daddy was a legend in the mind of all his kids.
He’d build you anything at all from pallets or from skids.
Could Daddy build a radio or colour TV set
By using his oscilloscope and testing tubes? You bet!

For hours in the evening time, my Dad would not be seen,
Those tubes to test and babes to feed, this was his life’s routine…
Now, testing tubes and babies-it has got to make you think.
Am I the only one who wonders if there was a link?

A baby born each year for years-could this be random chance,
Or were we test tube babies and not merely happenstance?
I hold no grudge if Janet was the first the world would see-
Just grateful that he fixed the bugs before he got to me.

For fixing was his business; when my Dad worked at the Press.
At stripper, lock-up, line-up (hey, he needed cash, I guess),
If Veikko couldn’t fix it, he just gave my Dad a call.
(But Choban, Myers, Wilkerson, no one could fix at all.)

The day the giant web broke down, they said there was no hope.
My Daddy said he’d fix it just with his oscilloscope.
He climbed inside and days went by. When he came out, you know,
Not only had he fixed it, it played old-time radio.

When Daddy built the house on Lawson Road, I understand
For weeks and months he worked to dig the basement out by hand.
A burst of energy like that has rarely been displayed
But even he got tired and he finished with a spade.

My Daddy was a legend both in fiction and in fact.
When things got loud downstairs, he’d do a disappearing act.
It worked each time like magic and Houdini at his best,
To beat Dad’s disappearing act would truly have been pressed.

Yes, Daddy was a legend and a legend he remains.
He still will fix your TV set or clear your clogged-up drains .
There’s no more test tube babies (he and Mom have made a pact)
But still, there’s lots of magic in his legendary act.

Optional refrain: Daddy, he’s a legend, legend of Tooley’s Road.