Right or Left at Oak Street
Posted on July 31, 2013 by Robert Ringer —
The alarm rang at seven this morning,
The same time it did yesterday.
Seven-thirty is my breakfast time,
And I know what the wife’s gonna say.
The Crawfords next door got a new swimming pool,
The Miller’s got a color TV.
Mr. Wilson’s job is not good as yours,
But his wife dresses better than me.
I get to the school at eight o-five
And drop off the kids at the gate.
Then I drive past the clock outside the bank,
It’s exactly a quarter past eight.
When I reach the stop sign at Oak Street,
The same thought crosses my mind:
Should I turn right like I always have,
Or left and leave it behind?
Right or left at Oak Street,
That’s the choice I face every day.
And I don’t know which takes more courage,
The staying or the running away.
A left turn would take me to somewhere,
Leave alarm clocks and schedules behind.
And the world wouldn’t care if I’m not somewhere
At some particular time.
Where a man can do what he wants to do,
And no one expects him to give
All of his time to the same old routine
In the one life that he has to live.
I’m not sure which way is the best way,
But I’ve always turned right before.
And it might be strange at the end of the day
If they weren’t there at the door.
A man must make his decisions,
But he must consider the stakes.
For every man’s life is a gamble;
It depends on the turn that he takes.
Right or left at Oak Street,
That’s the choice I face every day.
And I don’t know which takes more courage,
The staying or the running away.
By Charlie Williams and Joe Nixon
© Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
My take:
Some pretty heavy thoughts going on here. One can only guess at how many millions of people have not thought, at one time or another, what it would be like to just take off one day and leave their daily routine behind — the alarm going off in the morning, eating breakfast, dropping the kids off at school, etc. Welcome to suburban America!
Like all good lyrics, those in “Right or Left at Oak Street” are vivid. You can just picture Roy Clark, on the way back from dropping the kids off at school, sitting at the corner of Main and Oak Streets, thinking the unthinkable: “What would happen if, instead of turning right at Oak Street, I turned left and ‘left it all behind?’”
It’s a heck of an interesting question that no doubt has crossed the minds of millions of people over the centuries, particular in modern-day America: Which one takes more courage — staying put or running away from it all? The answer to this question is summed up succinctly in the next-to-the-last stanza of this little ditty with the words:
A man must make his decisions,
But he must consider the stakes.
For every man’s life is a gamble;
It depends on the turn that he takes.
A wise person’s always considers the stakes, but, make no mistake about it, life — with its endless twists and turns — is, indeed, a gamble. And one wrong turn — especially if it’s a major one — can sometimes be fatal. (Let us not forget Marius’ near-fatal left turn in the movie Fanny, when he went to sea in search of the “isles beneath the winds.”)
Of course, for those of us who are happily married and lucky enough to enjoy a good family life, which way to turn on Oak Street never enters the picture. But, even so, it’s not hard to imagine millions of people being able to relate all too well to the clever words in “Right or Left at Oak Street.”
Unfortunately, no video on this one, so you’ll have to enjoy Roy Clark’s audio of these profound, thought-provoking lyrics. As always, if you should locate a video on the Net, please let me know.
+Robert Ringer is an American icon whose unique insights into life have helped millions of readers worldwide. He is also the author of two New York Times #1 bestselling books, both of which have been listed by The New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time.