Washington Songwriter weaves tale of Paoli
Contributed by, Roy E. Denton
Hoosier Times
Sunday, January 25, 2004
 | Maybe what I saw happen isn't what Roy Denton had in mind. Then again, maybe it's exactly what he had in mind. We'll come back to that. It's important, first of all, to establish who Roy is. He's an Orange County native transplanted in a place called Gig Harbor, Wash., where he wrote a song about his hometown of Paoli. |
| Roy packed the lyrics off to Nashville, Tenn., a few years ago, where he felt honored that the Oak Ridge Boys and Garth Brooks, for a while, considered it as what Roy called "recordable material." Roy also posted the lyrics to the song - fittingly called "Paoli" - on his www.sanroy.com Web site. And, he has worked with a partner named Roger Gemelle to re-cut the song on a single. They're teaming up with a Los Angeles recording company representative named Connie Fenton to see if there's a future for the recording; the cut features Roy's voice, although he considers himself a lyricist and not a singer. |
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Another thing that Roy has done is respond favorably to a Web site e- mail request from Paoli's Stephen Dickey wanting Roy's permission for a group of musicians to perform the song at this year's Lotus Dickey Hometown Reunion in June. The event is named for Stephen's father, folk legend Lotus Dickey.
If the lyrics to "Paoli" are indeed heard from the Reunion's stage in June, the crowd will embrace it, according to Ruth Uyesugi, the one Paoli resident who is mentioned specifically in the song.
Ruth taught at Paoli High School back in 1960 when Roy graduated, and is still there on a part-time basis today. She said, "Paoli should be happy because Roy's song is really a celebration of his hometown."
Roy thinks in a similar vein, and so do others who are involved in trying to help him promote "Paoli," the song.
"What they're saying is that people in small towns will relate to the song," Roy told me. "It brings back some very pleasant memories of some very happy times."
There's a shared experience among those who, like Roy, grew up in Paoli - even those who didn't, if their youth was spent in a similar environment.
Roy wrote and sings of Sandra Tomlinson, the girl he held dear in Paoli in the late 1960s, and still holds dear. But now her name is Sandy Denton.
He sings of what has changed over the years, like dates at the Paoli Drive-in. (It's now an auto salvage yard).
He sings of what hasn't changed, things like tasty Shakeburger onion rings and lessons taught by Mrs. U.
The song doesn't elaborate on U's place in Roy's life, but he can talk at length about how, as an English and Spanish teacher in those days (and a journalism teacher in my time), she was his favorite teacher and how she encouraged him to write lyrics.
"Throughout my high school years, I wrote approximately 1,000 song lyrics. When she found out about my writing, Ruth was encouraging. The Paolite (school) newspaper did a nice article on my lyric writing," he said.
But things changed after high school.
Roy and Sandy moved around the country a bit as he worked in various fields, including manufacturing and farming. Eventually they moved to Gig Harbor, where Roy, in a roundabout way, ended up writing again because a young woman needed some fresh material in her quest to break into the music business. The song "Paoli" came to be, and Roy has since written another 1,000 new lyrics (mostly Christian), in addition to singing on the "Paoli" recording.
He said in an e-mail, "Ruth told me someday I would do very well as a lyricist. She just neglected to tell me how long it would take."
After writing "Paoli," Roy traveled to Paoli and dropped in at Ruth's place one day to sing the song to her. (Local singer Melinda Sketo, since that time, has also written a song about Ruth and stopped to serenade her with it.)
He said, "It has been in the back of my mind to do something with my music - giving back to people and sharing."
But what about that fear I expressed because I had seen something transpire that Roy might not have intended to happen?
What he doesn't know is that my 17-year-old, Mariah — now a columnist for that same high school newspaper that talked about his lyrics more than 40 years ago — pulled his "Paoli" lyrics off the Internet before I did. In her "A View From the Moon" column, she took the liberty of rewriting the lyrics to appeal to today's high-schooler in Paoli.
In her version, she writes of a journalism teacher she calls E (for Heather Eubank) vs. a teacher named U. She writes of modern-day experiences that are comparable to Roy's experiences as a youth, but still different. He was there too early to write about drinking hot chocolate at Paoli Peaks, studying pre-cal at Taco Bell or "cruising by Tobacco Road to see who's around."
But, maybe, on the other hand, Roy would be pleased that a high school student took his concept and song and related it to a modern-day teenager.
After all, remember, he did say that the people trying to promote the song "Paoli" are saying that people in small towns will relate to it.
Mariah closed out her column by asking: "What is your Paoli song?"
I would amend that question only slightly.
Wherever it is that you grew up, what is your song?