The country music performer Jud Strunk was born Justin Roderick Strunk, Jr. on June 11, 1936 in Jamestown, New York. He was a singer-songwriter akin to Jimmy Buffett (except Strunk sang about his adopted state of Maine rather than Key West and the tropics) who played the tenor banjo and piano. He also was an actor specializing in comedy. In 1960, while still in his early twenties, he moved to Farmington, Maine, eventually making his home on a farm in Eustis, Maine. Strunk toured in a one-man show for the U.S. Armed Forces, after which, he regularly traveled from Maine to to New York City to perform. He had a role in the Broadway musical "Beautiful Dreamer,' which led to television acting jobs in California during the early 1970's: two appearances on "Bewitched" and a regular gig on "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In." He recorded four record albums of country music, "Downeast Viewpoint" (Columbia - 1970), "Jones' General Store" (MGM - 1971), "Daisy a Day" (MGM - 1973), and "A Semi-Reformed Tequila Crazed Gypsy Looks Back" (MCA - 1977). The albums are filled with his own songs that evinced a political and ecological awareness. Ironically, he scored a Top 15 hit on the Pop chart with his single "Daisy a Day," a song without political import but that proved to be a good, old-fashioned tear-jerker about devoted love. In 1974, he cracked the Top 60 on the Pop charts with his spoken-word single "My Country," and his 1975 novelty song "The Biggest Parakeets in Town" made it into the Pop Top 50. Married and divorced twice, he had three children: Rory, Jeffrey and Joel. He died in that particular bette noir of musicians, a light-plane crash, on October 15, 1981 when he was just 45 years old. His sons are trying to get a movie based on their father's life into production. DAISY A DAY He remembers the first time he met her He remembers the first thing she said He remembers the first time he held her And the night that she came to his bed He remembers her sweet way of saying, "Honey, has something gone wrong?" He remembers the fun and the teasing And the reason he wrote her this song: "I'll give you a daisy a day, dear I'll give you a daisy a day I'll love you until the rivers run still And the four winds we know blow away" They would walk down the street in the evening And for years I would see them go by And their love that was more than the clothes that they wore Could be seen in the gleam in their eyes As a kid, they would take me for candy And I'd love to go tagging along We'd hold hands while we walked to the corner And the old man would sing her his song "I'll give you a daisy a day, dear I'll give you a daisy a day I'll love you until the rivers run still And the four winds we know blow away" Now he walks down the street in the evening And he stops by the old candy store And I somehow believe he's believing He's holding her hand like before For he feels all her love walking with him And he smiles at the things she might say Then the old man walks up to the hilltop And he gives her a daisy a day "I'll give you a daisy a day, dear I'll give you a daisy a day I'll love you until the rivers run still And the four winds we know blow away"

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