Deadline Doggerel: A New Way To See The USA
© David Volk

It's not often that a news item prompts me to wax poetic, but this one did.  

MIAMI - A family that was part of a group of Cubans intercepted while trying to sail to Florida in a vintage Buick converted into a boat cannot be returned home until at least Monday, a federal judge ruled.

The family participated in a similarly mechanically challenging trip last July aboard a '95' Chevy pickup with pontoons made out of empty 55-gallon drums and a propeller.

The Coast Guard intercepted the 1950s floating car Wednesday about 10 miles off the Florida Keys. The Buick had been fitted with propellers welded to the drive shaft.

My modest offering follows:

You can put a tiger in your tank,
You can take it to the bank.
You can come away with me, Lucille
In my merry Oldsmobile.
There's no need to fear,
If your tractor runs like a Deere.
And there's no reason for VW owners to feel haunted,
When they hear that drivers are wanted,
No matter what they say,
They won't give your car away.

I admit it won't effect me greatly,
If you haven't driven a Ford lately,
And if you're a man from Texaco,
You'll work from Maine to Mexico.
But if you're a family in Havana,
Looking for a plan-a,
To get off the island,
And head to the highland,
And you can't afford a diner,
Much less an ocean liner,
And you can't find a boat,
To just float and float and float,
IN case you didn't know,
Recent news stories show,
There's now a new option,
To get to this country for adoption.
Last summer a family took the old ads to heart    
And they decided to depart
And see the USA
In their floating Chevrolet.
And when the first try didn't stick,
They came back in a seagoing Buick.
The crew included children, a father and mother
That drifted for want of a rudder.

And now the Department of Homeland Security
Is worried about water with too high an incidence of (Lincoln) Mercuries.

From a man who promises not to quit his day job,

David G(etting back to work now) Volk