Oops!

I had a big long post going but accidentally lost it. It's just as well, I guess, and I'm certainly not going to do it again.

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When I Was One-and-Twenty

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As I was going to St. Ives

All in the month of May,

I met an aged, aged man

With hair like moldy hay;

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His hair was weedy, his beard was long,

His boots were up to the thigh;

And I never saw a man who looked

So wistfully at the sky.

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"Rain, rain, go away!"

He cried into the blue;

But the sun shone bright, where never lark

Or even eagle flew.

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So now, whene'er I see my cat

Twirling the kitchen knives,

And look again, and find it's just

A bowl of leeks and chives;

I realize that sight grows dim

After old age arrives,

And I understand that man I met

A-going to St. Ives.

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This is the last of the fall contest poems. It wasn't easy. In this category, you had to take lines from well-known poems and put them together to form what the sponsor called a "Cento." They may throw this one out on technical grounds, because I broke down halfway through and started making up lines.

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I have small hope for the easy poems, ones I wrote quickly, like "Old Abe" and "Mother Teresa." But I'm entering 10, so maybe one or two of the old ones will win something.

A New Poem for Sunday

I'm trying to get all the poems written for the Fall 2010 contests. In this one I played fast and loose with the facts, like '83 for '93. And where it refers to speed, you ought to read efficiency and dependability--I never really outran the troopers. And old Abe is still going. This poem is for the category "Look On the Bright Side."
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Eulogy for Old Abe

Old Abe was my car that traveled near and far
In all kinds of weather and places;
Born in '83, it was very plain to see
That he'd never lay down in the traces.

He guzzled the gas, and no other car could pass
When I put my foot on the pedal;
Any time we had a mind, we could leave 'em all behind
Waitin' for the gravel to settle.

I can't forget the time on I-59,
When I saw the state troopers up ahead;
The gauge said 102, and I thought, Uh-oh, we're through!
But Abe wasn't ready to play dead!

He edged to the right, so the mirror caught the light
And blinded the law with the glimmer!
When we left them there a-blinkin', they must have been a-thinkin'
That what passed them was only a shimmer.

But since it's Nature's way, in '09 there came a day
When we couldn't keep up such a ruction;
We were 'way out in the woods, when I popped up the hood
And saw a tragic scene of destruction!

The engine was gone and the radiator blown;
Every B had come loose from its A (so to speak);
There was no use to boo-hoo--Abe had met his Waterloo,
Just like that old Deacon's one-hoss shay!

So Abe came to be a mere streak of memory,
Like so many other wonders from my youth.
They can build all kinds of tripe, but they'll never see his like;
Old Abe was the best, and that's the truth!

And if there's a place where ghost cars can race,
Some track out beyond space and time,
You can bet that Old Abe is leavin' 'em in the shade,
Just like he did on I-59!

By JRC, 09/05/10

Nearly 300,000 to go

Macintosh--I meant MacAfee--has been scanning ever since I turned on the computer this morning about 10 a.m. So far it says it has scanned 61,892 things--somethings, I don't know what. Several days ago when it stopped scanning, I clicked on it, and it said it had scanned 350,000-plus things. That's one reason my old computer is so slow and takes me all day to get anything done.

Today I mailed my Mother Teresa poem to be included in the 2010 Alabama Poetry Society anthology. Robert Frost said his goal was to "lodge a few poems where they can't be ignored." I wish I could hit some places like that.

Remembering

Today my heart is with Susan. Vann passed away a year ago today.

On July 9th, I remembered not only my Jenny and other loved ones, but also my good friend Vann Cleveland. They are all never far from my thoughts, and I miss them so much! The world gets smaller on this side of the river.

Well, I've read three fifths of Doctor Zhivago, and it seems a shame not to finish it, although it's like running uphill. My hat's off to anyone who has suffered through the whole thing. Hundreds of characters that seem like thousands, with unpronounceable names; there may really be only a few dozens, their names change so often that you can't be sure whom you've met before. The very length of the names makes them exhausting to read. Yuri and Tonia are almost always referred to as Yurii Andreievich and Antonina Alexandrovna. And those are two of the easiest.

The first half of the book takes place during "the war" that's going on before the Russian revolution, and you don't know which war or who "the enemy" is until deep into the quagmire.

This is one instance where the movie is definitely better than the book. In fact, it's one of my favorite movies. Or used to be. I don't know if I'd ever watch it again, except for the exquisite landscape scenery, and the great and beautiful actors in it--Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin. Even old Rod Steiger was great; corrupt and nasty as Komarovsky was, he had a good heart, and I felt sorry for him every time he got his come-uppance. And even in the book, he was always Victor Ippolitovitch Komarovsky--only eleven syllables.

A New Poem

Mother Teresa Enters Heaven

Rich men's houses everywhere I look!
And golden streets--I'm in the wrong part of town;
Even the gates I came through gleam like pearls.
Where do the homeless go, the sick lie down?

A new hospital should rise on this spot,
But these great mansions seem to go on for miles.
If I get funding, surely we'll find a site.
Where is that girl who keeps my business files?

Oh, dear, I must have died! I think I know
This place; it's like the dream before my birth.
But I can't stay here--people are cold and ill,
Starving--I must get back to the streets of earth!

"But this is heaven, ma'am," they tell me now,
And, "No one's sick or homeless in this place."
I'm sure they're right--the natives ought to know--
But I think I'll build a shelter, just in case.

jrc 8/30/2010

Walk a Mile in My Shoes

I've walked a couple of miles this morning, around and around my house, contemplating all the things I have to do today. Sometimes it's harder than other times, to make myself get into the shower and get ready to face the world and its vicissitudes. (Checking the dictionary, I see that I spelled it right. It means a lot of things, all related. Could have said turmoil. I love words; there's nothing like them; they're in a class by themselves.) But today, it's time to get down to business.

First I have to finish packing and mailing an e-normous book to New York. And a spoon to some foreign country like Oregon or Omaha, something with an O, where they don't have many spoons.

Then I have to pay a bill or two before the next billing cycle. I need an infusion of about 1.125 million USD. Who doesn't?

It has been raining softly for 2-3 days, and it slows down my metabolism. I've slept until I'm groggy. Groggier.

The Last Emperor

I put off going to the grocery store most of the afternoon because I couldn't quit watching this movie. I saw it many years ago, probably soon after it was released in the 1980s. I think it's probably one of the best films ever made, and one of the saddest. John Lone was brilliant, as he always was. Peter O'Toole was already old. Good movie.

Thinning Out the Books

The charity truck comes tomorrow, and I've got two trays of books ready to be picked up. And I've only gone through two of the big bookcases. I hope to get rid of that stack on the right-hand side of the bench, before I start using it as furniture.

My creative juices seem to have dried up this month. I do have one new project going, which is making holiday ornaments for Christmas presents, but it's still in the stage of assembling the materials and tools. If I were better organized, I would finish some of the old ones before starting something new. But Christmas is coming fast, and tempus fugit.

Sick o'Chicken

Recently while finishing up a batch of drumsticks, it occurred to me how tired I am of chicken. So today for lunch I made a good old shoe-leather--I mean, steak sandwich. It was delicious, but mighty chewy. I'm not a good steak cooker. Anyway, I sliced up some of what was left and made a big old pot of beef stew, which is now simmering on the stove, and saved the rest for Gretchen or the black cat.

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If he ever gets tame enough to catch, I'm going to take that black cat to the vet and see if she'll do some pro bono surgery on his tail. When he first turned up on my porch, he was in very bad shape; looked like someone had tied wires around his neck and his tail, besides other wounds. He looks right beautiful now, but half of his tail came off and what's left is a real mess. Even if I have to pay to make him a bobtailed cat, I guess I'll do it. He has reached the point where he'll let me touch him when he's eating, but if I try to get hold of him, he's off like a shot.
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He's really a pretty cat, but he can't come in the house on account of Mo.

Anyway, for dinner I'm going to have beef stew, black eye peas, chow chow and cornbread. People don't founder, do they?

The Prize

This morning while doing laundry and other stuff, I watched this old Paul Newman movie, "The Prize." I think it may be the best one he ever made (leaving out the Butch Cassidy of it all). Perhaps because it didn't have Elizabeth Taylor to ham it up, or Joanne Woodward to make you want to look the other way.

I've been working on the house since 6:30 this morning. After today, I'm not going to worry about it.

A goal

All this week I've been going over the novel I wrote in 2007. It's really pretty good, just needs a plot and some rewriting. At least, I think the writing is pretty good.

I've also got half a dozen poems ready to enter in the ASPS contests, including a couple of new ones.

What I'm thinking of doing is combining the 2007 novel with the one I started this year, which is primarily about an elderly woman. A book about old people has to be spot-on excellent to catch anybody's attention. Anyway, I'm hoping I can (1) work her story into the 2007 book, and (2) improve the whole thing. I'm not saying I'm going to do it, as my resolutions often get bogged down. But that's a goal.

Rue

Here's something to make you wonder "what the vendor buys/ one-half so precious as the stuff she sells."

I spread it on the deck to get some of the fust of decades out of it. I sold it for a few cents more than twenty dollars.

Of course, there are remedies. I could refuse to mail it to the buyer, and send her money back. Especially since the sale makes me want to take the damned $20 and process it down the Disposal.

This is the only thing I've sold that caused me a large twinge of regret. And makes me angry. My sister wouldn't take it as a gift.

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If I were planning to hang around this [expletive deleted] planet for another three-quarters of a century, I would keep it regardless, and finish it someday. But folks, why bother? Elvis is dead these 33 years, and I don't even feel as lively as I used to.

The Tale of the Nancy Bell

By W.S. Gilbert

'Twas on the shores that 'round our coast

From Deal to Ramsgate span,

That I found alone on a piece of stone

An elderly naval man;

His hair was weedy, his beard was long,

And weedy and long was he;

And I heard this wight on the shore recite

In a singular minor key:

"Oh, I am a cook, and a captain bold,

And the mate of the Nancy brig,

And a bosun tight, and a midship mite,

And the crew of the captain's gig!"

And he shook his fist, and he tore his hair,

Till I really felt afraid,

But I couldn't help thinking the man had been drinking,

And so I simply said,

"Oh, elderly man, 'tis little I know

Of the ways of men of the sea;

But I'll eat my hand if I understand

How you can possibly be

"At once a cook and a captain bold

And the mate of the Nancy brig,

And a bosun tight and a midship mite

And the crew of the captain's gig."

Then giving a hitch to his trousers, which

Is a trick all seamen l'arn,

And having got rid of a thumping quid,

He spun this painful yarn:

"'Twas on the good ship Nancy Bell

That we sailed to the Indian Sea,

And there on a reef we come to grief,

Which has often occurred to me;

"And well-nigh all of the crew was lost

(There was seventy-seven o' soul),

And only ten of the Nancy's men

Cried 'here' to the muster-roll:

"There was me and the cook, and the captain bold,

And the mate of the Nancy brig,

And the bosun tight, and a midship mite,

And the crew of the captain's gig.

"For a month we'd neither wittles nor drink,

Till a-hungered we did feel,

So we drawed a lot, and accordin' shot

The captain for our meal.

"The next lot fell to the Nancy's mate,

And a delicate dish he made;

Then our appetite on the midship mite

We seven survivors stayed.

"And next we murdered the bosun tight,

And he much resembled pig.

Then we wittled free, did the cook and me,

On the crew of the captain's gig.

"Till only the cook and me was left,

And the delicate question, 'Which

Of us two goes to the kettle?' arose,

And we argued it out as sich.

"For I loved that cook as a brother, I did,

And the cook, he worshipped me;
But we'd both be blowed if we'd either be stowed

In the other chap's hold, you see.

"'I'll be eat if you dines off me,' says Tom,

And 'That,' says I, 'you'll be.'

'I'll be boiled if I die, my friend,' quoth I,

And 'Exactly so!' quoth he.

"'Dear James,' says the cook, 'to murder me

Were a foolish thing to do,

For don't you see that you can't cook me,

While I can--and will--cook you!'

"And he boils the water, and takes the salt

And pepper in portions true

(Which he never forgot), and some chopped shalot

And some sage and parsley, too.

"'Come here,' says he, with a proper pride

Which his smiling features tell;

''Twill soothing be, if I let you see

How extremely nice you'll smell!'

"And he stirred it 'round and 'round and 'round,

And he sniffed at the foaming froth,

When I ups with his heels and smothered his squeals

In the scum of the boiling broth.

"And I et that cook in a week or less,

And as I eating be

The last of his chops--why, I nearly drops,

For a wessel in sight I see!

"And I never larf, and I never smile,

And I never lark nor play,

But I sit and croak, and a single joke

I have, which is to say,

"Oh, I am a cook, and a captain bold,

And the mate of the Nancy brig,

And a bosun tight, and a midship mite,

And the crew of the captain's gig."

If wishes were pigs...

Or if horses could fly (something like that), wishes might come true. On my sister Susan's blog one day, I found a device that would tell you which famous author's style your writing most resembled. It said that I write like James Joyce. I tell you, if I could write like Patrick O'Brian, author of the Master and Commander books, I think I would spend half my time writing and the other half thanking Providence on bended knees. With brief intervals for looking after physical needs.

The one I'm reading now is The Far Side of the World, surely one of the best books I've ever cracked, although so far it seems to be a sort of calm or hiatus between real battling sea-adventures. I keep thinking that, when I've sailed through all twenty books of this set, I have to read Moby Dick again. Maybe even sooner.

The book club meeting yesterday was really great. At the end, four of us sat for a long time telling personal adventures in the supernatural or, briefly, ghostly experiences. This indulgence was brought on by the apparently supernatural elements in Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge. I must say that getting to the library and back, with loads of food and other hospitable necessities, almost melted me down to a nubbin. I slept off and on for the rest of the time from then until now.

In The Far Side of the World, O'Brian in an aside flings off the recipe for grog, the seaman's thirst-quencher and legal stipend. Grog it seems is merely a watered-down, unfrozen daiquiri. "Three of water, one of rum, with the proportionate lemon juice and sugar." "Six-water grog" was punishment for misdemeanors. Anyway, I have been longing for something to drink all day that's thicker than water and less insipid than my version of tea, but not as calorie-laden or kidney-damaging as fizzy soft drinks. So I made a jug of grog using white Zinfandel in the absence of rum, which has always given me bad headaches anyway. Luckily I had lemons. My mixture could use a lot more sugar; otherwise it serves the purpose.

Suddenly I remember Baskin & Robbins's daiquiri sherbet. Which also gave me headaches, but which I loved to distraction.
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Sometime recently, I found scattered in my computer files a tiny poem I wrote in 2009, that fits one of the fall contest categories. It needs work, but it's not too bad.

My Holiday in the U.K.

Today while cleaning out a desk drawer, I found and re-read a 17-page typed account of our 1997 trip to England. I wrote it about a month after we got back home. It's probably still somewhere in my computer files. It has some amusing spots, and it made me nostalgic about some of the people I used to work with, as well as people and places we met on the tour. I had forgot that our tour guide is the one who told me about the books Sarum and Pillars of the Earth, which I read when I got home.

I haven't done anything useful today except brush the cobwebs off my new back door and the whole back wall of the house that my long-handled brushes would reach. I was trying to get one desk drawer cleaned out so I could keep my bills, stamps, address labels, etc., in it, but there's just too much stuff, so I put most of it back where I found it.

Today I had a delicious lunch of rutabagas with butter and cornbread. Think I'll fix just an enormous salad for my dinner, and a grapefruit for dessert.

Poems for Comfort

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there of clay and wattles made;
Nine beanrows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade. (W.B. Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree)
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She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the banks of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love.

A violet by a mossy stone
Half-hidden from the eye;
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky,

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and oh,
The difference to me! (Wordsworth, a Lucy poem)

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...She turned away, and with the autumn weather
Compelled my imagination many days,
Many days and many hours,
Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers;
And I wonder how they would have been together!
I should have lost a gesture or a pose.
Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
The troubled midnight and the noon's repose. (T.S. Eliot, La figlia che piange)
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Jed came over Saturday and left Sunday. In between, he installed a new computer, but left my old setup until I get used to the new one.
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On Friday, the Lowe's man and the Pella windows man came and measured all our windows. I only want to replace the big window unit in the living room, but the estimate was free, so I let them wander through the house measuring all the windows.
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Saturday afternoon, while Jed was working on the computers, I went to the thrift store with Sister Ramey. She found two pretty T-shirts for me, and I found a beautiful antique bowl for myself. I know--coals to Newcastle, etc. But aside from my collection of yellow ware, I don't have enough serving bowls. Or didn't.

Rooster Party!

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I don't have a whole bunch of roosters, but here they are, plus a little flock of hens to keep them company. The one at the top is Samuel, painted by me in the 1980s. Happy Rooster Party!

I'm off to Barb's Bella Vista site to see more roosters.

The Poet's Workshop

The Alabama State Poetry Society's wonderful and generous members are sponsoring fourteen separate writing competitions for this fall, in addition to the "big" award given by the ASPS organization. At least two of the contests are designed and funded by my good friends Joe and Gail W. Each sponsor assigns a title and subject to his or her award, then specifies the form and maximum length of the poem to be submitted, and the number and amounts of prizes to be awarded. Needless to say, the sponsor shells out the do-re-mi for these awards.

I'm just sorry I haven't sponsored a contest in a long time, and I intend to do so in the future. The contests take place twice a year, in spring and fall. Yesterday, when I received the email from Donna Jean, our contest manager, I got busy and sent in my membership dues for this year and next year, which I had neglected so far.

The subjects of the awards this fall are so fascinating, I hope to write something to enter in every one of them. An example is Contest #6, "Travel the World Award," which requests a poem about "any trip you've taken." This one is sponsored by Mary H., a very fine poet herself.

As my photo shows, I've been perusing Wildflowers of Alabama and Adjoining States, seeking inspiration for Contest #15, "My Favorite Alabama Native Flower Award," designed by Mary Jean S.

If I should win a prize and get to stand up at the fall meeting, I intend to thank every one of these individuals who have "put on" one of the biggest award seasons ASPS has had in a long time. I hope this is the beginning of a revival of the old enthusiasm and participation in this great organization.

Freedom--It's Grand!

Or, What Retirement Means To Me: When you get tired of a job, you can put the rest of it off until tomorrow, or next week.

This morning I toted another load of paper out of my office, old tax returns, bank statements, Amazon.com sales slips--more than half of the stuff in my file tub. I was thinking I'd like to have a paper shredder; but I asked myself, what for? If anyone was misguided enough to steal my identity or plagiarize my writing, pity them. I have also thought about renting a big dumpster from Veolia--I could really get my house in order if there was just somewhere to put stuff. The curb?

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I've made a lot of progress lately, getting my office the way I want it. Jed hooked up my new printer over the weekend. (He also installed a new switch in the foyer, so the chandelier works.) I moved the white desk out to where I can use it just by swiveling my chair around; and I put the book bins in the corner where the desk was. Once I get everything out of here, down to the bare essentials, then I can do some scrubbing and painting, new curtains, all the cosmetic stuff.

The main obstructions are books: I've sold about 500 books on Amazon, and now I've got more than I had to start with. The bookcases won't start to hold them all. I'm thinking of putting a big box on the curb with a sign that says BOOKS! And then tote armloads of the same out there to fill it up.


The camera didn't want to do this; too much light-and-dark contrast, I guess. But it gives a general idea. The molding around the door is sort of beat-up, but someday I'll get everything painted.

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Mitch Miller
July 4, 1911 - July 31, 2010

This was a man I would have married, if he had ever asked me.

"Be kind to your web-footed friends,

For a duck may be somebody's mother.

Be kind to your friends in the swamp,

Where the weather is very, very damp!

You may think that this is the end--

Well, it is!"