Avondale High and the 1924 Bell

Lyrics

Empty bleachers.
The cold aluminum under my hands.
The lights are out on the home field tonight.
But I can still hear it.
It came north from the candy magnate's desk.
A town drawn up like a postcard from England.
1924.
And in the same breath, a high school.
A foundation poured, a future framed.
And you. A bell cast in Troy, New York.
Meneely & Company stamp hidden inside.
Shipped south on a train,
to ring over a field that was still just red clay.
And that one note holds it all.
The hope of a Friday night under the floodlights.
The promise of a May morning in a white robe.
One strike of the clapper.
The sound of being from here.
The 1924 bell.
Our true north.
I remember the homecoming parade.
The floats turning down Clarendon Avenue.
The smell of diesel from the bus idling by the gate.
Cut grass and popcorn.
The band playing a fight song a little out of tune.
We'd scream ourselves hoarse from these very seats.
And after every touchdown,
we'd wait for it.
That clean, sharp victory peal.
And that one note holds it all.
The hope of a Friday night under the floodlights.
The promise of a May morning in a white robe.
One strike of the clapper.
The sound of being from here.
The 1924 bell.
Our true north.
Then the game clock runs out for good.
It's 10 a.m. in the Georgia sun.
The metal of the bell already warm.
No uniforms, just borrowed gowns.
No cheering section, just families squinting in the heat.
And the principal, with a rope in hand,
pulls once.
Not for points on a board.
For every life about to begin.
The field is quiet now.
Just the wind in the pines behind the end zone.
But that sound…
It never really stops ringing.
That one note.
From 1924.
For tomorrow.
And the next tomorrow.