Me and that Navy ain't speaking.
At sailing, I tell you, I'm through.
On the advice of a doc, I got me a shock.
I had to have something to do.
These nerves I've got are from
soaking too long
when a ship got hit by a plane.
And right here, about four years back,
I met Grasshopper McLean.
The sun was a -burning
in the desert red hot,
and his mother drove in with a flat.
She went inside to cool off with a beer,
and I saw her kid in the back.
He lay on the seat in the sweltering heat,
with hair the color of flame.
A red -headed mite,
but smiling and bright,
was little old Grasshopper McClain.
I fixed her tire
and was toting him around
when she asked me how much she owed.
I just laughed and said, oh,
I'll settle for him.
And to my surprise,
she drove off down the road.
I figured she'd sober
and come hurrying back.
But for three long years, she never came.
And all that time, I was mother and dad
to little old Grasshopper McClain.
I'd tell him of ships I'd
sailed on the seas
when I put him to bed at night,
and that freckle -faced kid
was sharp as a tack
and quick as a mate for a fight.
I thought I'd wait till he'd grown a bit
and let him pick out his own name.
One day he came in with a
bug in his hand
and he said, Me, Grasshopper McLean.
Oh, he'd mimic my walk
and he'd mimic my talk,
like my shadow, he'd just tag me around.
He even had to be checked
every time I was checked by the
Navy doc over in town.
The doc would laugh and thump
his little old chest
and say, Feller, you're right as rain.
Then he'd turn to me
and tell me that I'd be a new man,
thanks to Grasshopper McLean.
I guess you wonder why I'm telling you this.
Well, that's why I'm here doing time.
For a bang and a sheriff
and a red -headed dame
that came to take what was mine.
Ah, but you should have seen
the way he fought.
You could tell that kid was Navy trained.
But this lonely cell
wouldn't be so much like hell
If I only had Grasshopper McLean