I think this verse is inexplicable and that to me is what makes folk music special. I love the different theories that contributors have come up with and accept that any one of them could be true - but we'll never know. To me it is a really surreal verse and I love it as such. the fact that Richard Farina could take what I feel is a song of adolescent angst and use the form and the imagery to say something so powerful about something so important - well that's why I love folk music and the people that produce and produced it.