Bill Talbot

Twelve-year-old Russell McPhail is having trouble fitting in during his first year of junior high school. While he longs to become more popular, his painful self-consciousness and fear of embarrassing himself prevent him from taking part in school life. His fortunes start to improve when he discovers an injured teen idol on a remote ski run and gets credit in the media for rescuing him. Hoping to parlay this fame into popularity at school, he exaggerates his role in the rescue which unleashes a series of disastrous events that get him in trouble with his mom, the school principal, and the school bully. Russell's vivid imagination produces unique solutions to his problems which leads to hilarious results.
 

In process - currently recording "I Don't Care For Mississippi"

I Don't care for Mississippi
 I don't care for Mississippi   
She's a verdant green, but tinged with black
She'll be oh so easy to leave, and there ain't no goin' back 
Echoes of that tragic history, sinister shapes that hung, from trees   
So, I don't care for Mississippi
No, I don't care at all
 
I don't care for Mississippi
That history so hard to bear
Those sins we got to wear
 
Gonna go up to the land of snow
Where sins are buried so no one knows
Gifts of smallpox blankets, children ripped from mother's arms,
Schools of guilt and shame, didn't mean them any harm
No, I don't care about that history
I don't care at all
    
I don't care about that history
Makes it easier to pretend
That we're not as bad as them
We're not as bad as them
 
We're not as bad as them
So, I don't care at all

When I found you
One of these mornings, lost inside myself
Thoughts are drifting, remembering how it fe…..lt
That moment's elation, the sweetness of your smile
Your eyes, your spark, your style,

And who'd have believed that it would last
Through all of these decades past
I'm so glad that I found y…ou
So glad that I found you
 
Anticipation, of seeing you again
Exultation, that you felt, the sa…me
Times together, filled up with such bliss
Your glance, your touch, your kiss

And who 'd have believed that it would last
Through all of these decades past
I'm so glad that I found y…ou
So glad that I found you

Broken
Your future at the edge of nowhere       
You hold a dream that you can share
Nothing much, but trees and sand
Unyielding, but cleared by hand
Endless rocks and roots recede
You till the soil and plant the seed
Bro…o….ken
 
You tried to keep the upper hand
In your struggle not to quit the land
This battle leaves a broken man
Bro…o….ken
 
Your res-olution's oh so str-ong
But you can on-ly carry on so long
Years of toil, that sap the will
A promise that, goes unfulfilled
The endless chasm of despair
Becomes too much for one to bear
Bro…o….ken
 
You tried to keep the upper hand
In your struggle not to quit the land
This battle leaves a broken man
Bro…o….ken
 
Though tragedy defined you
So I only knew you from afar
It's just a barrier to be chipped away
To remember who you are
Bro…o….ken
Bro…o….ken

Sherry's Song
Once in a life it happens
A seed that's sown in Spring
Can give life its meaning
A promise only love can bring
 
When leaves have turned from green
To their vibrant gold and red
Their beauty only deepens
With more loveliness ahead
 
Don't mind getting old
When I have you to hold
No use clinging to the past
Cause good things always last
 
Two souls forever one
Two oaks with roots entwined
Two lives with one purpose
Grown together for all time
 
Don't mind getting old
When I have you to hold
No use clinging to the past
Cause good things always last
 
No use clinging to the past
Cause good things always last
 

This is a very old article. I included it because I mentioned it in my biography. You can find it at Talbot, B. (1990). Writing for Learning in School: Is It Possible? Language Arts, 67(1), 47–56. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41961700