Killing Time

I saw this man sitting on a bench as the day passed by. For some reason, the song "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" came to mind.

"Look like nothing's gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can't do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I'll remain the same, yes"

"Sittin' here resting my bones
And this loneliness won't leave me alone
It's two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home"

-Otis Redding - "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay"

The song topped the charts in the United States and in the UK, but Redding would never realize the popularity of it.

“(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” was written by Otis Redding and Booker T. & the M.G.'s. guitarist Steve Cropper. Redding wrote a portion of the song while sitting on a house boat the he is rumored to have rented in Sausalito, California.

This was said to be the last hit song that Otis Redding recorded just two days before he died in a plane crash in 1967. The song was not released until 1968.

The charter plane that crashed while carrying the famous soul singer occurred over Madison Wisconsin. In addition to Redding dying in the crash, so were six others. Redding was only 26 when killed. If he were still alive today, the Dawson, Georgia native would have been 76 years old.

Shake the world in a gentle way

He was sitting in front of a closed and vacant building in downtown Nashville when I met him. “I’m 60,” he said with a drag of his cigarette.

I gave him a 7 man tent that was given to me by my friends Jessica and Rusty Bonds and he picked up the bag it was in curiously looking it over. He then handed it back to me telling me to give it to someone else in need. “This is too big for just me,” I smiled and told him to wait a minute. I then retrieved a two man tent and gave that to him. He smiled and said, “Thank you, I appreciate it.”

Thank you Jessica and Rusty Bonds.

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” ― Mahatma Gandhi