I keep thinking I’ll have something pithy to say about the closing of Signature’s slummy garage space and its move to the spankin’ new multi-million dollar two-theatre complex in upscale Shirlington Village.

But I don’t. The old building was, for me, the site of many personal triumphs as well as some of the bitterest moments in my life – some of which are still hard to discuss. Even though I was in my mid-thirties when we moved into the garage, I feel like I did a tremendous amount of “growing up” in the space, and for that I’ll be grateful.

We closed the space Saturday night with the final performance of The Last Garage Hurrah. I had the last song in the old space; a rewritten version of “One For My Baby.” In lieu of deeper thoughts, I thought I’d share the lyrics I wrote:

It’s getting near twelve
There’s no one in the place
Excepting ourselves

So raise ’em up, folks
It’s time to put aside
Our jibes and our jokes

We’re drinking, my friends,
To the end of a sweet episode
Let’s make it one for this building
And one more for the road

It’s known our routine
It’s seen us through the good times
And through the lean
And whenever we’ve roamed
This place sent out a song
That called us all home

For the roof, for the walls,
For the floors and the halls
And the shelter it’s showed
Let’s make it one for this building
And one more for the road

You may not know it,
But people, I’m a kind of poet
And I’ve got so many things to say
But when I start to
I just haven’t got the heart to
The words just fade away

Well, that’s how it goes
And soon it will be time
For these old doors to close
And we’ll go up the hill
Just think of all the new dreams
We have to fulfill

But for all thirteen years,
For the laughs, for the tears,
And the thanks that it’s owed
Let’s make it one for this building
And one more for the road
That long,
Long
Road