Run Terry Run

Your name was stained on the rock cuts
By a thousand helping hands
Nothing ever turned out like you planned…
You ran your race in the hot grey dust
And the cold Canadian rain
Twenty-six miles a day to get back home again,
To get back home again, to get back home

Chorus:

Run Terry Run
Into the Northern Ontario sun
Your day is nearly done
Run Terry Run

You had one good leg like a maple tree
And one like an old screen door
Creaking and banging your way across this country shore to shore
One great heart for the world to see
And a soft spot in your chest
A nation wept when the hard road got the best of you
Well it got the rest of you
Cuz we got the best of you…

(Chorus)

Bridge:
How many times has my mind replayed that scene?
Cop cars came crawling up Highway 17
I stood like a statue and watched you run by
If cancer can’t catch you then why…

You said I’m doing it my way and you swore you would not rest
Til you ran that rugged highway that rolls from east to west
Nobody believed you, you were just some crazy kid
Now everyone knows what you did
Did all that one man could do
And the country's still running for you…

(Chorus, repeat)

This is a true story, and until recently I had the photograph to prove I really did see Terry run by that day along Highway 17.

I added the second part of the bridge at the urging of my friend Robert, the bartender.

This song keeps telling its own story. I can barely keep up.