“BIG JIM”

By Richard E. Noble

Big Jim was his name, and plumbing his game.
When it came to a leak, a pipe or brass fixture,
he was the man with the torch and lead mixture.
There wasn’t a joint that Big Jim couldn’t sweat,
be it horizontal or vertical.
He knew his stuff, you bet,
when it came to things metallurgical.

But I say with a sigh, and this no lie,
our Big Jim was a Mister Five by Five.
And as he grew older,
his waist far surpassed his broad shoulder.
He was quite a guy, Big Jim Sheehy, Mister Five by Five.

One night when Big Jim was on his way home from Cain and Bernard,
He stumbled into a cruiser that had jumped in the path to his yard.

By way of explanation,
Big Jim began to recite, in expletive, the American Declaration.
Then, with intention beguiling,
he burst into stanza …
the theme from Bonanza
and a chorus or two of ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’.

Big Jim thought it quite appropriate,
but the cops thought that he should go to-the-poke-for-it.
So one by one, they leapt from the cruiser,
thinking that they would subdue the five by five bruiser.

They wailed with their clubs and grabbed for his thumbs,
while Big Jim just laughed and dropped to his buns.
“I give, I give ... I’m a peaceable fellow,”
Big Jim, from the ground, he did bellow.

“Well you’re disturbin’ the peace, and we’re the police,
and we’re here to entail and cart your butt down to the jail.”

“Well you go right ahead, and I’d never resist,
but I’m afraid I’m too tipsy to help or assist.”

So with effort of perspiration and sweat,
It was something to see,
as Mister Pee and Wee
struggled ‘till soaking wet.

They swore and they cussed,
as they tumbled and fussed
and tugged at Big Jim’s anchor.
But he was broad a’ beam
and jellyroll mean,
and too laughable to cause any rancor.

So they gave him a stay,
as on the ground he lay,
then wagged their fingers in warnin’.

“We’re gonna let ya go,
though you darn well know,
that we’re the police
and you’re disturbin’ the peace,
One wise peep and we’ll be back with recruits,
pulleys and shoots
and cart ya off to the jail house in the mornin’.