My Hoosier Heritage
A blue State Historical Marker denotes the fading home site
Hidden in plain view, resting solo in the vacant
Parking lot of this Red State University campus
In the ironic shade of the Business School building
We make our pilgrimage to Terre Haute
Home of Convict #9653
Five times candidate for President of the United States
Founder of the American Socialist Party
Great American Granddaddy Wobblie
All but forgotten on this last Friday before Xmas 2007
No one comes through the wet grey Indiana day
Save for my songwriting buddy and I
We have a wild hair idea to write the musical
Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs
And we have come to see for ourselves
The rooms the grand orator occupied
We must bang a good long time
before the old Victorian door opens
A young, plain, socialist girl in silk slippers
And bad skin nods us in; points to the register
And passes us a badly worn typewritten guide
heavily fingered and red-lined
She leaves us quickly, dodging behind an
‘Employees only’ doorway
Grand home, well made, and ornate
Like the man gold initialed alligator bags
And fine folding slippers share display space
With campaign buttons and signed copies of first editions
From Fellow Travelers Upton Sinclair
Mother Jones, Clarence Darrow,
Big Bill Haywoord, even ‘Hoosier Poet’ James Whitcomb Riley
A man for the people, he had a healthy sense of self-importance
Saving every letter, every poster, flyer, poem and speech
Ideas and the words that carried them were sacred
Convicted of treason for his refusal to be silenced
Such radical notions as child labor laws
Women’s suffrage and Right to Organize
Seditious and dangerous ideas a century ago
Now crumble in dusty letter boxes
We climb the stairs and down again
Winding our way through gentile rooms
Papered walls where oiled portraits and framed photos
Tell the story of the American Labor Movement
On the way out, we explain our mission to the
Sullen sister who emerges just as our last steps
Creak down the old firebrand’s stairway
She confides she used to get paid by the Foundation
When she was still an official student
But now the young socialist stays in the basement
Alone with her thoughts and the great man’s relics
We smile knowingly, buy a handful of buttons
And re-enter the harsh haze of daylight
