Pennsylvania Avenue

There were straights and freaks jocks and rebels Catholic bibles with pictures of the devil The playing field was anything but level We had a fist fight or two on Pennsylvania Avenue My first cigarette almost choked me And I remember a note a seventh grade girl wrote me It said we're breaking up and my heart almost broke me Right in two on Pennsylvania Avenue There's a thousand summer days back there lying in the past Like bright shiny quarters lost out in the grass When the carnival was over we rode our bikes to town And filled our empty pockets with the treasure that we found I'd air out my brown sleeping bag on the clothesline Soaked with campfire smoke and spilled wine We shot BB's at the moon til the steam rose through the sunshine Then headed home to sleep till noon on Pennsylvania Avenue There's a thousand summer days back there lying in the past Like bright shiny quarters lost out in the grass When the carnival was over we rode our bikes to town And filled our empty pockets with the treasure that we found This morning I woke to the fading roar of an old Ford Mom and Dad and us three kids were headed to the seashore Where the sun stung our skin and the salt made our eyes sore But the sky was a wilder kind of blue than on Pennsylvania Avenue