Billy-Bob was bonkers over galaxies and that,

he liked to stand and stare up at the sky,

if anybody asked him just what he was looking at,

he'd smile and say: "I reckon I could fly!"

He made a sort of set of wings from sheets off someone's bed,

and jumped right off that bridge on Coody's Creek,

two feet of water saved him, or he might have wound up dead,

he hobbled on a crutch for near a week.

We all went to the football field, his rocket set to go,

he'd built it out of fireworks and stuff,

instead of going up the thing exploded - what a show!

But Billy lost two fingers, that was rough.

The hovercraft he built just never got up off the ground,

his flying saucer stayed on earth as well,

his fourth try at a jet plane almost broke the speed of sound,

but then, just like the other ones, it fell.

He tried to break the stratospheric record for a flight,

a businessman had sponsored his balloon,

of course, our Billy waited and then took off in the night,

he told us he was aiming for the moon.

He qualified for NASA, did the training, learned the ropes,

on simulators Billy was an ace,

he graduated astronaut, and had the highest hopes

the shuttle soon would head for outer space.

The headlines told the tragic news - some accident bizarre,

an error in the fuel telemetry,

now, Billy-Bob is out there somewhere, sitting on a star,

the very place that he was born to be.