Carpenters Were Butchers Poem by Mike Kosman

I'd like to tell you all about
This one truck driving man
Ain' t got time to tell it all
But I'll do the best I can
There's drivers and canivers
And their stories all been told
But when the good Lord made my daddy
He threw away the mold

My daddy was a driving man
He drove them big ol trucks
Steal anything that weren't tied down
Just to make a couple bucks
He smoked cigars that were never more
Than a couple inches long
And when my old man thought that he was right
Everybody else was wrong

Carpenters were butchers
And butchers couldn't cut meat
And the salesman at the shoe store
Didn't know nothing about his feet
Had a dirty mouth and a heart of gold
And big ears that's for sure
And the doctor could't fix nothing
That a little bit of iodine wouldn't cure

He use to take me with him
On his run to South Bend
He'd talk about the old days
And the places that he'd been
We'd be truckin down old studebaker hill
In Georgia overdrive
When we'd hit the bottom I'd clean my pants
And thank God I was alive

He was a gear jammin son of o gun
They called him Stormy Norm
But deep inside that driver
Was my daddy soft and warm
He was a better cusser and word maker upper
Than any man alive
And he could tell your nationality
Just by the way you drive

He had no use for foreigners
Or hippy yippie freaks
And cops and politicians
Just weren't his cut of meat
But when a man had trouble
Any color breed or brand
I never once seen him refuse
To lend a helping hand

But carpenters were butchers
And butchers couldn't cut meat
And the saleman at the shoe store
Didn't know nothing about his feet
Had a dirty mouth and a heart of gold
And big ears that's for sure
And the doctor couldn't fix nothing
That a little bit of iodine wouldn't cure