Announcing a second blog.

I am unveiling a second blog today.

Make your way, if you dare, to Billy Ray Barnwell Here.

Ssshhhh! Don't tell anybody, but today's secret birthday boy is...

...only a click away.

This picture reminds me of something...

Oh, I know!: The Five Little Peppers And How They Grew! Well, they do have something in common, sort of: the Five Little Peppers lived in a little brown house, and the photo above is of people who lived (or soon will live) in a little white house.

And it reminds me of Rodney King of Los Angeles, California, who said, “Can’t we all just get along?”

And it reminds me of ’N Sync, but I can’t decide whether President Clinton is Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, or Joey Fatone.

And it reminds me that I live in the greatest nation on the face of the earth (my apologies to all who respectfully disagree).

What does it remind you of?

The Cremation of Sam McGee

In a comment on yesterday’s post, Dr. John Linna of Neenah, Wisconsin, allowed as how I am the first person he has run into who has read The Cremation of Sam McGee besides himself. That’s pretty hard to believe, but I believe you, Dr. John, because you are a retired Lutheran minister and not given, I would assume, to bearing false witness.

Thanks to the greatest high-school English teacher who ever lived, the one and only Mr. D. P. Morris, our entire ninth-grade English class had to read The Cremation of Sam McGee, but that was way back in 1954 or 1955 and the world has changed a lot since then. And granted, it may not rank as great poetry when compared to the stuff John Keats produced (“When I have fears that I may cease to be before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain...”) or Percy Bysshe Shelley (“Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert”) or George Gordon, Lord Byron (“The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold...”) or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks...”) or Alfred, Lord Tennyson (“Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, into the valley of death rode the six hundred...”), but Robert W. Service, in his own way, was no slouch either.

So without further ado, Damen und Herren, Mesdames et Messieurs, Ladies and Gentlemen, and Children Of All Ages, I direct your attention to the center ring, where, for your reading pleasure and educational edification, I give you:


The Cremation of Sam McGee
by Robert W. Service

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ‘taint being dead -- it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”

A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows -- O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.”
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared and the furnace roared -- such a blaze you seldom see;
Then I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked;” . . . then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm --
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

A mini-challenge in two parts

If you can name the two young women kissing Woody Allen in the photo in yesterday’s post, you will get extra points when the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name*. Oh, and googling or yahooing is verboten.

I recognized one of them immediately but it took me 24 hours to figure out who the other one is.


*For when the One Great Scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks -- not that you won or lost --
But how you played the game.


Speaking of recognized, many people recognize the lines above but have no idea who wrote them or where they came from (for my readers in the U.K., from whence they came). Well, they are part of a longer poem called “Alumnus Football” by Grantland Rice, a famous American sportswriter of an earlier generation. The poem appeared in Rice’s Only the Brave and Other Poems, published in 1941.

In honor of the valiant but losing effort put forth by the outmatched boys’ basketball team of Readlyn, Iowa, last night (full story at Jeanelle’s blog), here is the entire poem. As poems go, it’s not a great poem, but it does have a message for all of us. Those with a literary background may hear echoes of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress or Robert W. Service’s The Cremation of Sam McGee. Or not. For purposes of our post today, the only thing that could have made the poem any better is if it had used imagery from basketball.

The second part of today’s mini-challenge, class, is to get through the entire poem without having a single cynical thought. This part of the challenge may prove much more difficult than the first:


Alumnus Football
by Grantland Rice

Bill Jones had been the shining star upon his college team.
His tackling was ferocious and his bucking was a dream.
When husky William took the ball beneath his brawny arm
They had two extra men to ring the ambulance alarm.

Bill hit the line and ran the ends like some mad bull amuck.
The other team would shiver when they saw him start to buck.
And when some rival tackler tried to block his dashing pace,
On waking up, he’d ask, “Who drove that truck across my face?”

Bill had the speed -- Bill had the weight -- Bill never bucked in vain;
From goal to goal he whizzed along while fragments strewed the plain,
And there had been a standing bet, which no one tried to call,
That he could make his distance through a ten-foot granite wall.

When he wound up his college course each student’s heart was sore.
They wept to think bull-throated Bill would sock the line no more.
Not so with William -- in his dreams he saw the Field of Fame,
Where he would buck to glory in the swirl of Life’s big game.

Sweet are the dreams of college life, before our faith is nicked --
The world is but a cherry tree that’s waiting to be picked;
The world is but an open road -- until we find, one day,
How far away the goal posts are that called us to the play.

So, with the sheepskin tucked beneath his arm in football style,
Bill put on steam and dashed into the thickest of the pile;
With eyes ablaze he sprinted where the laureled highway led --
When Bill woke up his scalp hung loose and knots adorned his head.

He tried to run the ends of life, but with rib-crushing toss
A rent collector tackled him and threw him for a loss.
And when he switched his course again and dashed into the line
The massive Guard named Failure did a toddle on his spine.

Bill tried to punt out of the rut, but ere he turned the trick
Right Tackle Competition scuttled through and blocked the kick.
And when he tackled at Success in one long, vicious prod
The Fullback Disappointment steered his features in the sod.

Bill was no quitter, so he tried a buck in higher gear,
But Left Guard Envy broke it up and stood him on his ear.
Whereat he aimed a forward pass, but in two vicious bounds
Big Center Greed slipped through a hole and rammed him out of bounds.

But one day, when across the Field of Fame the goal seemed dim,
The wise old coach, Experience, came up and spoke to him.
“Oh Boy,” he said, “the main point now before you win your bout
Is keep on bucking Failure till you’ve worn the piker out!

“And, kid, cut out this fancy stuff -- go in there, low and hard;
Just keep your eye upon the ball and plug on, yard by yard,
And more than all, when you are thrown or tumbled with a crack,
Don’t sit there whining -- hustle up and keep on coming back;

“Keep coming back with all you’ve got, without an alibi,
If Competition trips you up or lands upon your eye,
Until at last above the din you hear this sentence spilled:
’We might as well let this bird through before we all get killed.’

“You’ll find the road is long and rough, with soft spots far apart,
Where only those can make the grade who have the Uphill Heart.
And when they stop you with a thud or halt you with a crack,
Let Courage call the signals as you keep on coming back.

“Keep coming back, and though the world may romp across your spine,
Let every game’s end find you still upon the battling line;
For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name,
He writes -- not that you won or lost -- but how you played the Game.”


I will post my answers to the first part of the challenge (the two women kissing Woody Allen in yesterday’s post) here after some of you have had a stab at it in the comments section.


Update: To find out who the mystery kissers are, please proceed at once to the comments section. Do not pass GO; do not collect $200.00!

Words of wisdom, or Sayings To Live By

In honor of Daphne of Leeds, Yorkshire, United Kingdom, a recent visitor to Paris (France), Barcelona (Spain), and Cape Canaveral (Florida, U.S.A.); and also in honor of Dr. Jim, a resident of that vast uncharted territory that spreads away from Houston (Texas, U.S.A.) who at this very moment is a passenger on the QM2 ocean liner and is planning to spend much of January on the island of Grenada in the Caribbean; and, belatedly, in honor of Sam and Dorothy G. who left frozen Ohio for Cabo San Lucas in Baja California before Christmas and Cocoa Beach in Florida after Christmas; and especially for all the fine folk everywhere who long to travel but for various reasons must stay at home, I post these words of wisdom:

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” --T.S. Eliot

“The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” --Marcel Proust

“If I had to live my life again, I’d do everything the same, except that I wouldn’t see The Magus.” --Woody Allen

They’re back!

(photo courtesy of www.moviescreenshots.blogspot.com)

I didn’t blog for an entire week. Knowing that Mrs. RWP and I were going to be taking a little trip to Alabama to visit our daughter’s family, I very shrewdly prepared posts in advance for December 29, 30, and 31 before we left. Fooled ya!

We had intended to return on Wednesday to avoid the phenomenon known as traffic-on-the-interstate-on-New-Year’s-Eve, but on Monday afternoon I suggested to Mrs. RWP that we stay until Thursday so that our daughter and her husband could “go out and do something” on New Year’s Eve and we could stay with the grandchildren. Hardly had these words made it out of my mouth when our son-in-law telephoned with some unexpected, exciting news. A local radio station had called to inform him that he had won two free tickets to the Alabama Symphony Orchestra’s New Year’s Eve concert at the Alabama Theater, complete with holiday masks, a champagne toast, and a balloon drop! Even better, he had been chosen as the V.I.P. winner from among the twelve winners of tickets and was also being given a one-night’s stay for two in a king-sized room at the Tutwiler Hotel in downtown Birmingham!

So while the children’s mommy and daddy whisked themselves away for an evening of adult-style fun and games, here is how Mrs. RWP and I spent New Year’s Eve:

5:30-6:00 p.m. - Pizza for the boys, leftover tortellini for us.
6:00-7:00 p.m. - Played Yahtzee.
7:00-8:00 p.m. - Played Sorry!

The original plan, drawn up by the boys, also called for playing Clue! and playing Checkers (no exclamation point required), but as often happens, the plans changed. We tore ourselves away from the board games and the evening continued:

8:00-9:30 p.m. - Watched reruns of America's Funniest Videos until I could stand it no longer.
9:30-11:00 p.m. - Watched DVD of Kung-Fu Panda.
11:00-???? - Watched unidentified motorcycle daredevil leap onto and off a ten-story building in Las Vegas; watched big crystal ball drop in New York’s Times Square; watched former president Bill Clinton kiss Hillary Clinton in Times Square; watched Hillary Clinton kiss Mayor Bloomberg in Times Square; watched various and sundry anonymous couples kiss in Times Square; watched motorcycle daredevil Robbie Knievel (son of Evel Knievel) jump over a volcano at the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas. Yes, you read that right. A volcano.

And then it was bedtime for all.

But life did not return to normal. After we returned home Thursday afternoon fully intending to resume blogging, our computer decided not to grant us access to the Internet, and it stayed obstinate until earlier today, when our son drove over, figured out why, and told it to cut out the funny business.

So, regarding the Rhymeswithplagues, as that little girl up there said in Poltergeist II, and I quote, “They’re back!”

And you didn’t even know they had gone!


(Photo by Sam Morris)

You were expecting maybe Mount Vesuvius?