That Glorious Song Of Old

Over there in my ramshackle blogroll thingie, you’ll find Daughter of the Golden West. There aren’t enough blogs like that on the Intertunnel. Or people like that on the planet, now that you mention it. It’s pleasant, and it’s location specific. If I need a dash of Southern California, I go over there and get a fix. One of the greatest services a blogger can perform is to simply depict what’s outside their windows. I used to live a few hours north of there, and I miss it sometimes.

The Daughter and her daughter have a business. They sell vintage Christmas ornaments and assorted other Yule swag at 32 Degrees North. They sent my sons Advent calendars. Marvelous.

When I was young, such things were rampant. We had little caroling books –and used them– and made garlands from strips of construction paper and wreaths from computer punch cards. We hung up those big, garish Christmas lights with red, orange, blue, and white bulbs, on the tree outside the door. We wrapped our front door like a present. We had fake snow in the corners of the windows. We favored all sorts of things we don’t see much of now. In many ways I feel as though my life has been thrown back in time. Because we didn’t have very much, we had to take a bit of time and care with everything. Little trifles become more memorable that way. It’s certainly like that for me again.

My little son has a very orderly mind and likes calendars and lists and thing of that nature, and he’s quite taken with his Advent calendar. We’re quite taken with him, of course, and grateful to people who are kind to him and his brother.

32 Degrees North

O ye beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow;
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.

When I’m Good And Ready

If I got to go get a roscoe I’ll get me a roscoe and then what? But I don’t need no roscoe for you. This place is nothing but a dunghill, but I’m the cock on top of it, brother. You don’t wanna come down here into my chicks. Ask anybody. You got a razor? I like it when they got a razor or some knuckles. Nothing but a minute’s work and then the Man don’t care what I done to you. But you don’t look like you could do nothing anyway.

You see that car out front? That’s me, brother. I go where I please and I do what I want and there’s no bud dee can tell me different. You cats always be measuring yourself to other peoples but I’m the only yardstick here and you better know it. You don’t know what you don’t know and that’s bad for your health if you get a notion. Why don’t you slide on down the rail and let me be. There’s high test and wimmins enough for everybody after I’m through and gone.

When I’m good and ready.

Orange Line

I wished I had you in Carrickfergus,
Only for nights in Ballygrand,
I would swim over the deepest ocean,
The deepest ocean to be by your side.

But the sea is wide and I can’t swim over
And neither have I wings to fly.
I wish I could find me a handy boatman
To ferry me over to my love and die.

My childhood days bring back sad reflections
Of happy days so long ago.
My boyhood friends and my own relations.
Have all passed on like the melting snow.

So I’ll spend my days in endless roving,
Soft is the grass and my bed is free.
Oh to be home now in Carrickfergus,
On the long road down to the salty sea.

And in Kilkenny it is reported
On marble stone there as black as ink,
With gold and silver I did support her
But I’ll sing no more now till I get a drink.

I’m drunk today and I’m rarely sober,
A handsome rover from town to town.
Oh but I am sick now and my days are numbered
Come all ye young men and lay me down.

I wish you’d put the battered kettle on
The bag could take one steeping more
I’d walk for miles across a rocky down
To hear the whistle we’re all waiting for

The gulf yawns wide and I can’t leap over
Until my time is drawing nigh
You’re laid to rest in the nonesuch clover
When you were here you slipped on by

Those Christmas days and our destinations
Trolley rides through the dirty snow
My childhood’s gone, like passing stations
Eyes full of tears, some from the cold

Month: November 2011

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