The Soup Stone By Gerry Hubbard, A Shel Silverstein Song

There is an ancient folktale about a wanderer who pulls a magical soup stone out of his pack and shows it to the astonished villagers. 

Asked to demonstrate it, he has an onlooker fetch a cauldron, into which he places the stone, with appropriate ceremony and gestures. 

Now, he requisitions a bunch of carrots and several large onions from the village storehouse. 

Eager volunteers contribute beans, scraps of meat, and various spices, all of which goes into the pot. 

Two strapping young peasants fill the pot with water from the nearby well and hang it over the communal hearth. 

The water begins to bubble, and soon a tantalizing aroma fills the air. The wanderer sniffs at the soup, tastes it, then nods sagely. 

He reaches in with a ladle, removes the stone, and returns it to his pack after letting it cool. 

The grateful villagers fill a large wooden bowl with the delicious soup for him, and he eats until his belly can hold no more. 

His hunger satisfied, he departs, leaving behind him a wondrous tale of a magical stone that conjures up the best soup that anyone can remember. 

I’ve played and sung this song for years but do not have any very good recordings of it. Charlotte Haskin heard me sing this at a family reunion a long time ago and wanted the lyrics:

Here are the lyrics by Shel Silverstein. 

Enjoy Gerry

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/3272458495/the-soup-stone-there-is-an-ancient-folktale

The Long Black Veil, Live, From The Wedding Tapes

The Long Black Veil, Live, From The Wedding Tapes

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/3326849457/the-long-black-veil-gerry-hubbard-with-david

A Daisy A Day, Performed by Gerry Hubbard with back up guitar and vocals by David Hubbard

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/3226196258/a-daisy-a-day-the-killer-sad-song-written-by

Speckled Pony, Gerry Hubbard, The Wedding Tapes

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/3503611581/the-speckled-pony-by-ten-year-old-craig-hubbard

This Old House, Neil Young by Gerry Hubbard

This Old House, Neil Young by Gerry Hubbard

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/3381794583/this-old-house-by-neil-young-makes-me-think-of-my

The Green Green Grass Of Home, Gerry Hubbard

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/3525012603/the-green-green-grass-of-home-gerry-hubbard

“The Captain”, Kasey Chambers, by Gerry Hubbard In Winter Park

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/3638390503/the-captain-kasey-chamber-by-gerry-hubbard-in

"This Flower", Kasey Chambers, Gerry Hubbard, Winter Park, Colorado, 2001

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/3583312284/this-flower-written-by-kasey-chambers-recorded

Uncle Earl Born August 1, 1910, Died May 4, 1968

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/3703438483/uncle-earl-born-august-1-1910-died-may-4-1968

The Ballad Of Patty Russell A Recitation By Gerry Hubbard

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/3190069272/a-darker-shade-of-blue-the-ballad-of-patty

South Mountain Ghost Story Gerry Hubbard

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/4160249423/south-mountain-ghost-story-gerry-hubbard-south

"Uncle Rudy" By Gerry Hubbard

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/4311125311/uncle-rudy-by-gerry-hubbard-uncle-rudy-was-a

The Calf Man Gerry Hubbard

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/4469004166/the-calf-man-a-feed-bag-on-the-mail-box-meant-we

The Milk Check Original By Gerry Hubbard, David Hubbard On Guitar

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/4720294286/the-milk-check-brought-up-on-a-dairy-farm-in-the

An Incident While Backswathing Original By Gerry Hubbard

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/4633753169/an-incident-while-backswathing-gerry-hubbard-we

The Peddler, The Ballad Of Nate Simons By Gerry Hubbard, David on Guitar

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/4807087475/the-peddlerthe-ballad-of-nate-simons-by-gerry

Truck Driving, By Gerry Hubbard, Performed By David Hubbard

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/4989251518/truck-driving-ive-hauled-bark-for-timbe

The Party Line, By Gerry Hubbard, Guitar David Hubbard

The Party Line, By Gerry Hubbard

Two longs three shorts our crank phone rang when someone called to talk
You could hear that single phone line hum and the hand receiver squawk
We all were on a party line, about ten farms or so
Those darned old phones would barely work in heavy rains or snow

We’d get a call from someone, as we talked of farms and sin
We could hear some other phones click on as neighbors listened in
Patty’s pregnant, Mike left Joan, Frank’s bull just won first prize
Sometimes we heard the neighbors laugh or gasp in stunned surprise

Gladys Mace was “Central” that you rang one long to get
For that small group of neighbors, she was like the Internet
“Three cars drove slow up by Earle’s pond ”, the caller wondered why
“That’s city people hunting deer”, came back her terse reply

“We heard some shots, there’s flashing lights on the hill by Raymond Brown.”
“That’s Sheriff Van Wie and the State Police, they’re hunting Rocco down.”
Four shorts would call Clarence Ellis and Glenny, Doris and Paul
Four longs would get Cook’s General Store, and it wasn’t in a mall

Two longs, one short got Hallecks, and David and Flora Dell
And there wasn’t any limit to the stories folks would tell
Otis shot a rabid fox, our dog fell off the tower
A Marine on leave has hit a tree at ninety miles an hour

Aggie Hubbard slipped and fell, she broke her hip and leg
And where’s the best price you can get to buy or sell some eggs
Chicken pox and whooping cough, young kids were caught with beer
LaVerne has just shot Russell’s goat, he thought it was a deer

Wayne’s in bed, we think it’s flu, he’s got a real bad cough
A Grand Gorge boy’s been torn apart by a tractor power take-off
Post settings Labels acoustic music country music Folk Music Gerry Hubbard Music Hubbard Hill Music mountain music original music rustic music, No matching suggestions Published on 4/24/11 4:21 AM Permalink Location Options

The Spring Lot by Gerry Hubbard, David Hubbard Performin

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/5630681472/the-spring-lot-was-three-acres-out-southeast

Last Game At Gilboa Central Talking Blues

Last Game At Gilboa Central Talking Blues

https://hubbardfamilymusic.tumblr.com/post/5819030770/i-played-four-years-of-basketball-for-gilboa

Me, LaVerne & Franklin Brown

The first five bucks I ever earned was for selling scrap iron with LaVerne that we hauled in a 1919 Model T
Me, LaVerne and Franklin Brown searched farmer’s dumps all over town and picked up every piece of scrap we’d see

Franklin Brown smoked cigarettes when just a kid but I forget which brand of those damned cancer sticks he chose.
At three am he’d come awake and grab that pack and then he’d take deep drags and you could smell it in his clothes.

His dad had driven my dad’s trucks and one day had the tragic luck to ditch a truck with a full load of cement.
The load broke loose and hit the cab and crushed the chest of Franklin’s dad on the steering wheel which wasn’t even bent.

We worked the spring of forty nine, I close my eyes and see those times and the memories we picked up just to sell,
Worn out plows and sickle bars, tractor wheels with rotten tires and every piece of scrap had tales to tell.

Of farmers dreams and farmers dreads as they worked their lives out in those sheds and hay fields in the shadow of those hills,
Getting by on hope and sweat and doing all they could to get the family fed and pay the monthly bills.

Milking cows and cutting corn, till old and sick and bent and worn and living every moment just on will.
Shirley Richmond comes to mind, all stoved in and face all lined, he worked that farm on the road to Manorkill.

I’ve made a little money since, in the third world I could be a prince, but I still can feel and smell those crisp new bills,
My brother paid to Frank and me beside that black old Model T in 1949 on Hubbard Hill.

Hubbard Hill Memories

Hubbard Hill Memories 100th Posting On The Music Mountain

This will be the 100th posting on the Hubbard Music Mountain and I though I would post the songpoemstory or whatever the hell it is that kinda started the whole thing.  I started Hubbard Hill Memories in 2005 and it grew into a 12 verse memory of events on Hubbard Hill almost by itself.  I remember singing the first and last verses of the song as it now is to my mother in a nursing home just before she died….

I was born in late September and some things that I remember are a pair of new red rubber cowboy boots.

In the Catskill Mountain sunshine, I remember like in dream time how I ran the fields with happy shouts & hoots.
And in the summer on a sultry day,
While my mother worked the windrows making hay
I was still a baby on a blanket neath a shade tree and I played & napped the afternoon away.

When my father brought the horses then they stacked the hay in courses on a steel wheeled wagon that my grandpa made
As I rode down in the haystack and my father held the horses back, my mother sang a hymn or softy prayed.
And in the barn the dust and hayseed swirled,
As I reveled in this fascinating world,
Then my mother brought us all a drink from the hand pump by the kitchen sink while barnyard sounds & smells around us curled.

In the winter it was cold as hell and every week the boys as well as Dad would go to cut some firewood.
With that old Farmall and Mall chainsaw we’d find a tree and make a fall and cut it up as quickly as we could.
For the winter wind and chill was bearing down,
As we struggled in the that cold and muddy ground,
Then we loaded up a half a cord and shivered while the tractor roared and took us tired half frozen homeward bound.

In the springtime we would load manure from piles that we had to store because we could not get through winter snow.
When I think of all the jobs I’ve had and some of them have been real bad, well that job has to be an all time low.
'Cause the springtime winds could blow it in your face,
And every load turned out to be a race,
Between the spreader breaking down or getting stuck in muddy ground and leaving the whole rig there in it’s place.

The third time Wayne drank kerosene from old Coke bottles he had seen sitting on the shelves in the wood shed,
Grandma Bessie said to Mom, "I know you mean nobody harm, but if he keeps doing that, he’ll soon be dead".
Doug’s eye got hurt while hunting from a car.
When Marilyn burned her hands it left some scars.
Merle Jr chopped my middle finger, thoughts of all that blood still linger, those are things that made us what we are.

When LaVerne turned over that old milk truck on Earl’s hill when black ice he struck, what happened after always makes me smile.
As I drove the Farmall to the spill I hit that same damned icy hill and skidded almost to the milk can pile.

To turn that old truck upright took an hour.
And on the road the milk began to sour.
Then I put that Farmall in low gear and towed that wreck till almost near the barn where we just stared at it awhile.

In the fall we’d often kill a pig and hang it from a tripod rig and gut it out to take inside to treat.
When mom would cook the tenderloin with home made pancakes we’d all join in dining on a meal called “ fit to eat”.
And the rhythm of the family filled our veins,
And the autumn breezes hummed in soft refrain.
Then we laid on the grassy lawn to look at stars until we’d yawn then go to sleep and start it all again.

Sue could take a .22 and hit the nail heads that popped through that old wood shed roof baking in the sun.
And we shot rats and dogs and chipmunks, hunted squirrel and deer and woodchucks, some for food and others just for fun.
And we hunt 'coon on Autumn rainy nights,
With dogs and guns and beer and big flashlights.
While that hound dog pack was barking "treed", we’d crash half drunk through brush and weeds, to get that scared raccoon in our gun sights. 
Susan sat with a BB gun while all us kids were having fun looking at Bonanza on TV.
A big gun fight at a mountain shack and Susan thought she'd fire back, she hit an outlaw with one brass BB.
The television set just buzzed then died.
While Susan grinned and looked around wide eyed.
And we stared at that tiny hole till Carol dropped the popcorn bowl then we all laughed until we almost cried.

Thanksgiving came with hunting season and lot’s of family found a reason to come “up home” to join in meals and song.
We gather around that old piano, Dad sang bass Mom sang soprano and uncles , aunts and cousins sang along.
And the old time Christian hymns would soar and chime
With harmonies so sweet and so sublime.
Then all the men went to hunt deer while all the ladies helped to clear the table for the meal at supper time.

Of the windows in that old farm house, some faced directly west and south and all the family many times a day,
Would check that eighteen mile view to guess the weather coming through and then you’d usually hear somebody say,
“When the rain comes it’ll be to wet to plow",
Or “The snows too deep there’ll be no school bus now",
And those windows from that farm house knoll were also windows to our souls and taught us love of hills and life somehow.

In this age of space and cell phones with those idiotic ring tones I return to those old times on Hubbard Hill.
And of often think of going back but now the house is just a shack and so I know I probly never will.
Still thoughts of friends and family gently bind,
As I think about those pure and peaceful times.
So when I need a quiet spot to go when troubles are a lot I go to Hubbard Hill just in my mind.
So when I need a quiet spot to go when troubles are a lot I go back to the Catskills in my mind.
So when I need a quiet spot to go when troubles are a lot I go back to my old home in my mind.

Doug I Hunting Woodchucks Talking Blues Gerry Hubbard

Doug I Hunting Woodchucks Talking Blues Gerry Hubbard

Doug  I Hunting Woodchucks

Doug and I took Dad’s old car out hunting one spring day
To hunt woodchucks with a .22 on the road toward Conesville way
Me fourteen and Doug was ten in a Buick ‘38
An old pump action .22 with the feed tube not quite straight

No air bags, seat belts, padded dash, soft steering wheels back then
Just a metal box and rigid steel, cast iron and plated tin
We started over the “cross” road, the day was bright and still
Turned right by Raymond Goodfellows then on down Fancher’s hill

Doug was fooling with the gun trying to load some shells
As we came up to Bob Cammer’s place, that farm he kept so well
As I looked over toward the gun and turned my head to see
I drove that damned old Buick straight into a big Oak tree

The horn popped out and hit my face, the steering wheel jammed my chest
And Doug bounced off that metal dash, then all just came to rest
Smoke and steam poured from the hood, the motor screaming, rough
Then I reached down and found the key and turned that damned thing off

Alton Brand was driving by and stopped and pulled us out
He said, “ It was the damndest thing I’d seen or thought about.”
“That car was going down the road as straight as straight can be
“It didn’t brake or make a curve, just drove into that tree” 

The State Police came out that night to make out their report
Dad had to say I stole that car to keep us out of court
The trooper took me to the porch and said his terse, brusque talk
“The next time you go hunting things, I think you’d better walk”

So at age 14 I’d wrecked a car and hurt my brother’s eyes
And I guess the thing I think about as years and months fly by
Malaria, bike accidents, close calls in cars and trucks
Living long and getting old takes lots and lots of luck.

Blue Wing, Rustic Acoustic By Gerry Hubbard

 Blue Wing, Tom Russell, By Gerry Hubbard

He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder
Might have been a blue bird I don't know
He’d get stone drunk and talk about Alaska
Salmon boats and 45 below

He got that blue wing in jail in Walla Walla
And his cellmate there was Little Willy John
Willy he was once a great blues singer
And winging Willy wrote him up this song.

He said it's dark in here; can't see the sky
But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes
And I fly away,  beyond these walls
Up above the clouds, where the rain don’t fall
On a poor man's dreams.

They paroled Blue Wing in August,  1963
And he moved on picking apples to the town of Wenatchee
Til the winter finally caught him in a run down trailer park
On the South side of Seattle,  where the days are cold and dark

And he drank and he dreamed a vision when the salmon still ran free
And his father’s father crossed that wide Bering sea
And the land belonged to everyone,  there were still old songs to sing
Now it's narrowed down to a cheap hotel and a tattooed prison wing

He said it's dark in here; can't see the sky
But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes
And I fly away,  beyond these walls
Up above the clouds where the rain don’t fall
On a poor man's dreams.

Well he drank his way to LA, that's where he died
And no one knew his Christian name,  there was no one there to cry
But I heard  there was a funeral, with a  preacher and an old pine box
Half way through the service, Blue wing began to talk.

He said it's dark in here; can't see the sky
But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes
And I fly away,  beyond these walls
Up above the clouds where the rain don’t fall
On a poor man's dreams.

Kicked By Cow Talking Blues, Three Chords One Take And To Hell With It

Kicked By Cow Talking Blues, Three Chords One Take And To Hell With It

Kicked, Original By Gerry Hubbard

“Paul’s been kicked”, Aunt Madeline said, through the old crank phone we had
“A window’s broke, an artery’s cut and he’s bleeding pretty bad.”

“He was in the barn just doing chores, gettin’ milk ready to send
When he got kicked through a window by that Ayeshire on the end.”

So Mom came running to our barn where we were milking cows
And said, “LaVerne, go get the car, Paul needs a doctor now!”

So we pulled off the milk machines, shut down the vacuum pump
And in a fifty-one green Chevy, both of us did jump

We made the mile to Uncle Earle’s, the peddle to the floor
And came up fast to a skidding stop beside the red barn door

Paul was there beside the barn, both arm’s were wrapped in white
We could see the bright blood seeping through and his eyes and lips were tight

“I should’ve killed her long ago”, he said with a rueful grin
“That bitch gets out and kicks like hell now see the shape I’m in.”

The nearest doc in Middleburg was twenty-miles away
And we’ve never drove that Guinea road as fast as on that day

We took him to Doc Lyons, got his bone deep cuts all stitched
And he mostly said on the ride back home, “I’m gonna kill that bitch”

But he healed fast and has the scars and he never killed that cow
But I’ll bet it all comes back to him when he thinks about it now

That summer night, the shattered glass, those bruised and bloody arms
And the times that only can be had by working on a farm

And I bet he shares with a lot of us a kind of soothing fact.
If you’re raised up on a dairy farm, life’s easy after that.

Life Is Fleeting: The Death Of Charles Hubbard, Original By Gerry Hubbard

Life Is Fleeting: The Death Of Charles Hubbard, Original By Gerry Hubbard

"Charles Hubbard of Sidney died, drawing ice from the river, caught under sleigh runners."...death notice in Sidney, NY newspaper around 1900.....

Just fourteen words complete it 
The ending of a life
No mention of a father
Of children or a wife


Chorus: About a hundred years ago
From a river hauling ice
Charles Hubbard slipped and fell
And ended then his life.

It might have been a sunny day
Or one deluged with snow 
Or just with winter’s keen cold breath
I guess we’ll never know 


Chorus: About a hundred years ago
From a river hauling ice
Charles Hubbard slipped and fell
And ended then his life.

I smell the sweating horses
Hear creaking of a sleigh
As Charles tugged and held the lines
The last time on that day


Chorus: About a hundred years ago
From a river hauling ice
Charles Hubbard slipped and fell
And ended then his life.

It might have been a patch of ice
A small uneven dip
That caused the team to buck and lunge
And start that fatal slip

Chorus: About a hundred years ago
From a river hauling ice
Charles Hubbard slipped and fell
And ended then his life.


Chorus: About a hundred years ago
From a river hauling ice
Charles Hubbard slipped and fell
And ended then his life.

Getting The Cows Talking Blues Gerry Hubbard

Getting The Cows Talking Blues Gerry Hubbard

Getting The Cows Talking Blues  Gerry Hubbard

Getting The Cows Talking Blues  

Co’ Bos, Cooo’ Bos”, we used to call when the cows weren’t at the gate
At the hilltop just below our house, when we were running late
If they weren’t there, we’d walk and run by the “crik” bed up the hill
Through sparkling dew, wet wild flowers and the song bird’s morning trill

Getting up at six o’clock in the morning sun or rain
We had to get the cows and milk before the school bus came
Our cow dog Prince, would bark and swing his broken leg around
As we worked the cows out through the trees and brought them slowly down

The old cow path’s were there before first mule and wagon tracks
And settlers planted buckwheat all through the hills out back
Began by Indians hunting game all through those rolling hills
And I bet in just a little while, I could find them for you still

But we never thought of that back then as we strived to get chores done
Just tried to get those damned cows milked, then school and have some fun
Because the girls were miles away except for those in school
So village kids thought school a drag but rural kids thought it cool

Johnny Goodmonk rode for hours on an old gray Ford farm tractor
To court the girls out in the hills and get what he was after
And so the spring and summer days rolled smoothly into fall
And every day we brought the cows inside and milked them all

One time in school, a teacher said, trying to wound my pride
“Whoever smells like cow manure, I wish you’d go outside.”
I left the class and slowly said, “It’s true I’ve stepped in shit,”
But it’s only on the outside, but you, you’re full of it.”

Prof bounced me from the school again and this time not for smoking
To say teachers were full of it was pretty much verboten
So I got a school vacation for two late warm springtime days
When I got up each morning, guess what I had to say

You guessed it, “Co Bos, Co Bos” to get the cows to come
And then I worked for two full days hard labor on that farm
But I guess I learned a lesson as I stayed from school those days
Nothing’s often good to do, and always good to say.