Jeremiah: On the Mississippi

 At one particular time in my life, I got to be a guest on one of the Showboat in the Mississippi River. This showboat would hold cabarets in the evening. Well, it was pretty early in the evening just about suppertime when some of us decided to take a small cruise down the river. It was a lazy evening and everybody seem to be eating supper outside enjoying the fine weather
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Inevitably, somebody lit up a joint. This created quite a reaction because at the time it was quite an issue as to whether they were going to legalize pot or not. The discussion turned to the politics of it all and the debate got pretty heated. There were many very intelligent reasons for and there were that many intelligent reasons against the legalization of pot and as this heated debate continued we slowly cruised down the Mississippi River and people watched the people eating their supper on the shores.

There were many households on the Mississippi River and each particular piece of land was very clearly divided into separate units. There are all kinds of people. There were traditional families with small babies. There were old folks just alone. There were large people. There were small people. There were black people. There were white people. And everybody no matter what kind of family they had, or what kind of company they kept, what kind of height or weight they Were, everybody seemed to be lighting up a joint.

The interesting thing was they each had an unusual way of doing it that matched their particular lifestyles. If you were a young woman and delicate you would have a pipe with flowers. If you were a solid military man you would maybe have something with blue and weapons or something. If you were from Africa you might have something tribal. And if you were designer you would have something really modern. Traditional people would have something old. People who like the city had something more contemporary. And country people had their favorite country motifs, like horses or countryside or something like that.

Meanwhile, we were engaging in the heated and political debate that was very logical about the questions of legalizing marijuana. And as we were watching the people the conversation stopped.

Because there was no way these people cared about all these great issues that we had with what was good for society. Or whether someone would get in the future more trouble. Or whether they would get married or had a future at all. Because everybody had a joint. And everybody had their way of life. And even as the politicians and the grand movers of the country would decide something these people would continue their habit of smoking pot. Because life just went on.

It seemed funny at the time. And the conversation drifted into the senselessness of what powerful people do. And whether or not it will make a difference in the long run. And what are we doing in this world. Because no matter what we intellectuals were doing in this world, these people would continue their habit of smoking pot. Why? It seemed like they always had.

While all this was going on in the background There was a steady course of the croaking frogs. They were all sorts of small frogs and one great big baritone croak. The particular bullfrog who did that large baritone had already been given a name. They called him Jeremiah. And they said even he was smoking pot because of each and every one of these frogs were as high as a kite.

That’s when we got back to the business of the Showboat and composing music and dance and we got together to create the song “Jeremiah was a bullfrog”. The whole thing was about pot which was a taboo subject on the radio at the time. So, we never really referred to the issue first hand. But no one really cared and it went on air anyways and became a great hit.