Unidentified…

I’ll make light of a terrible incident which happened in Hamilton (Ontario), Canada. I read this on the FoxNews website and had to wonder…

“The hand of the unidentified 23-year-old was hacked off Saturday outside the bash, Hamilton Police Sgt. Paul Lahaie told the paper.”

First off, perhaps a poor choice of words; first off, (really, that just came out that way, nothing intended), how is it the fellow is listed as “unidentified”? They have a man without a hand at a hospital and they have a hand that fits the arm; couldn’t they simply ask him what his name was? Here’s another idea, get the police to lift prints from the hand and see if there’s a match. Case solved; next.

Hamilton, Canada, was where Harry Chapin performed his “final concert”. This is the kind of story Harry would have had some fun with in his own twisted way. I was a Harry Chapin fan, still am even after he died so long ago. How many folks could make a cult hit out of a truck driver crashing 30,000 pounds of bananas in Scranton Pennsylvania? What about his song about a dry cleaner who sang while pressing cloths, or how time flies when the cat’s in cradle with a silver spoon?

At the time of Harry’s death he reportedly was working on a song about an elderly woman living in New York City. Her German Shepherd died and she needed to transport the rather large animal across town to be properly disposed. She didn’t wish to startle folks on the subway, carrying him in a suit case. Apparently there was a steep set of stairs the woman had to climb and a young man, seeing her inability to carry the heavy suitcase, volunteered to carry it for her; that was the last she ever saw of him or the suit case with her dead companion within as he ran off believing he’d stolen something of great value. What a song that would have been.

How would Harry have entertained us with a song about a guy at a party getting his hand chopped off and then later having it sewn back on? Anyone, please; a show of hands if you know?

“It was just after dark when the truck started down
The hill that leads into Scranton, Pennsylvania…”