Caroline Herring - Learning To Drive

Pretty girl from a Delta town
Made to run the gasoline down
Learned a little about many things
Our sweet potato cotton queen
Looks ahead when the whistles blow
A lady knows when it's time to go
Learned to drive on graveyard streets
And give a smile to all she meets

Daddy taught her to never look twice
Say thank you ma'am and always look nice
Be the best like a football team
Scoring against the rivalry
And keep the insides hammered down
Best performer of the stage in town
A speck surrounded by soybean fields
In the land of red clay wheels

They say she'd tumble over the pews
Go sit with the preacher, too
Play flute from the choir loft
Sing alto and soprano parts
Gaze out at the back church wall
Stained-glass Jesus standing tall
Holding all of His little lambs
And the whole world in His hands

The boys eyed her through the rear-view mirror
Sucking two straws on Strawberry Hill
Driving back from a country bridge
Or throwing rocks from the water's edge
Now she's all packed up in parceled pillars
She's driving a U-Haul across the Mississippi River
Lanterns on the levee and a fist full of cotton
Old times there will not be forgotten