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Ticonderoga picks up my Uncle Bob's story after his service and marriage. He worked his entire life in the International Paper mill in Ticonderoga. He was a loyal union guy, endured several strikes and made a life for himself, his wife and daughter. He also suffered from a mild speech impediment. A harder working, nicer guy there never was. He would write 3-page letters, covering both sides of the sheets without a square millimeter of margins. My dad would read them and then give them to me because I regarded Bob as a natural, unaffected storyteller. And hilarious, in his own way, though my dad rarely saw the humor. Bob once wrote that he noticed the same pile of 2 x 4's laying out in the rain, uncovered, day after day and beginning to warp, at an idled worksite. Not one to tolerate waste, he stopped his truck one day, threw all the lumber in the bed, drove home and built himself a deck with it.
His wife contracted cancer in her 50s and passed away. He grieved intensely for her, and had to sell his bass boat to cover some of her hospital bills due to reduced benefits from weak union contracts.
"Rednecks in green" refers to Rogers Rangers, a French and Indian War outfit of backwoodsmen who would be comparable to Army Rangers or Navy SEALS today. Abercrombie was a British general and aristocratic dimwit who sacrificed 2,000 of his own men by marching them repeatedly straight into a French fortified position, with never a thought to using his artillery to soften it up first. Sources say the battle (the Battle of Carillon, July 8, 1758) is still studied as a classic example of military tactical incompetence. Abercrombie was punished by recall to England where he was promoted, given a medal, and awarded a cushy pension. Look it up. You can't make this stuff up.
Lyrics:
Another autumn's leaves, ankle deep, cover up
Arrowhead. Musket ball.
A local girl leads another tour through the fort
Days of glory are recalled
Redcoats and red folk and rednecks in green
Swarmed o'er Champlain's southern shore
Where two of every ten are out of work in any week
Abercrombie's lads fell by the score
There's a phone call at work, he gets the news from the doc
It don't look good. She won't live the year
And the mill's cut his hours while the bills pile up
When times were tough before, his wife was near
There was a day when the lake trout snapped at the hook
He since sold the boat to pay down some debt
So he sits on the pier with his line in the lake
His old tackle box and old net
The French called you Carillon
They fought for you once, Ticonderoga
Who stands with you now?
Who paces the walls? Ticonderoga
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