Hamlet

Tucked into a small town in central Maine is the Theater at Monmouth which each year brings Shakespeare's plays alive on the stage. Charlie and I try to go at least once over the summer.

Earlier this week we went to see Hamlet. My oldest daughter lived, breathed, dreamed and spoke fluent Hamlet throughout her sophomore year of high school and still counts it as her favorite play. Charlie, as a high school english teacher, teaches the play each year. So, over the years, in spite of myself, I have had quite a bit of passive Hamlet exposure.

The performance that we enjoyed on Tuesday night was very good and what struck me is how very familiar the words are--and how familiar the thoughts behind the words.

Here are some of my favorites:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

"Brevity is the soul of wit"

"Madness in great ones must not unwatched go"

"More matter, with less art"

"This above all, to thine own self be true"

What is especially interesting, is how often we hear some of the lines in everyday speech, perhaps with the speaker not even realizing where they originated.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Thirty three years ago today, the freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald went down in the waters of Lake Superior during a massive November storm. The ship had battled through the storm all day and was only 17 miles from the entrance of Whitefish Bay when it sank with 29 crew on board.

I remember reading about the tragedy in the newspaper and then in the following year, Gordon Lightfoot did what folksong writers have always done. He passed history down through words and music so that the story would never be forgotten.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Gordon Lightfoot

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.

With a load of iron ore - 26,000 tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconson
As the big freighters go it was bigger than most
With a crew and the Captain well seasoned.

Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ships bell rang
Could it be the North Wind they'd been feeling.

The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
T'was the witch of November come stealing.

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashing
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane West Wind

When supper time came the old cook came on deck
Saying fellows it's too rough to feed ya
At 7PM a main hatchway caved in
He said fellas it's been good to know ya.

The Captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the words turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd fifteen more miles behind her.

They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the ruins of her ice water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.

And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed, 'til it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.

Hayden Carruth, American poet

Hayden Carruth died yesterday. In 1996, he won a Pullitzer prize for his collection of poetry called Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey.

I am an appreciator of poetry but have little critical insight. I understand what is written and sometimes if I mull on it for a while I understand what is not written but most of the subtleties are probably lost on me.

My daily poetry tutorial consists of Garrison Keillor's Writer's Alamanc on the radio during morning drives. Several years ago Garrison read a poem called Memory that stuck with me until I got home, googled and copied it to my list of favorite poems.

Yesterday when I heard that Hayden Carruth had died I thought that perhaps he had written that haunting poem--he had.

"Memory," by Hayden Carruth from Doctor Jazz (Copper Canyon Press).

Memory

A woman I used to know well died
A week ago. Not to be mysterious:
She and I were married. I'm told
She fell down dead on a street in
Lower Manhattan, and I suppose
She suffered a stroke or a heart attack.
The last time I saw her was in the spring
Of 1955, meaning forty-four
Years ago, and now when I try
To imagine her death I see in my
Mind a good-looking, twenty-nine-
Year-old woman sprawled on the pavement.
It does no good to go and examine
My own ravaged face in the bathroom
Mirror; I cannot transpose my ravage-
Ment to her. She is fixed in my mind
As she was. Brown hair, brown eyes,
Slender and sexy, coming home
From her job as an editor in a huge
Building in midtown. Forty-four
Years is longer than I thought. My dear,
How could you have let this happen to you?

Six Foot Town by Big and Rich

My brakes are on fire
From trying to slow down
I'm always burning my tires
And my horn is to loud
I catch people looking funny at me
When I step to the window and I toss a TV
Sometimes I get crazy and it makes a big scene
But when I hit 21 I wanna stand up and scream
I'm filthy rich with laughter,
I'm too big for the room
You know from two stories up
A Zenith makes a big boom

It's hard to get around in a six foot town
When your ten feet tall everything is so small
I'm always bumping my head
I'm way to long for the bed
It's hard to get around
In a six foot town.

Some people live inside a tiny little box
Their preoccupied about mismatching their socks
I never been one to worry about much
I just wanna laugh and love
I just wanna live it up

It's hard to get around in a six foot town
When your ten feet tall everything is so small
I'm always bumping my head
I'm way to long for the bed
It's hard to get around
In a six foot town.

Sometimes I stumble just because of my size
But hey y'all that's alright
That's the way God made me
I am what I am
And I can't do nothing bout that

It's hard to get around in a six foot town
When your ten feet tall everything is so small
I'm always bumping my head
I'm way to long for the bed
It's hard to get around

It's hard to get around in a six foot town
When your ten feet tall everything is so small
I'm always bumping my head
I'm way to long for the bed
It's hard to get around
In a six foot town

Theme Song

Yesterday, Weather Boy and Rach both wrote about music and songs that were important to them and, sad to say, I didn't recognize a single song that they mentioned. Am I really that old? Perhaps or maybe they just like obscure music. But it got me thinking.

In about 1971 when I was 12, I got a clock radio in my room and listened late into the night to a station called WAQY that played rock and roll. I loved the independence of listening to a station of my own but really just wasn't a rock and roll kind of gal. Eventually, the dial found a country station and then I found the theme songs of my teenage years--love songs, ballads, harmony, and gospel quartets. Looking back, I realize that I was a geek--I totally missed the best decade of rock and roll and missed having anything in common with my generation. It is especially ironic since 35 years later I married a man who was in a rock and roll band in the 70's.

During the primary campaign of 1976, a handsome nephew of my mother's came to stay with us--he was in the secret service and protecting a candidate who was campaigning in our area--I think the candidate was Jimmy Carter and the nephew was definitely Texican. Anyway, Texican played the guitar and didn't think I was such a geek for loving country music. He brought my brother and me a couple of country and bluegrass albums and I think we just about wore those albums out.

By late 1976, I was playing the bass and singing in a bluegrass band and spent several summers traveling around New England going to bluegrass festivals. Those were good days. We would play on the stage--early on Friday because we weren't that good--the bands would get better as the day and weekend wore on. When we weren't enjoying the music on stage, we were picking with anybody that had an instrument. Some beautiful music lofted into the heavens on those nights.

By the mid-80's, there wasn't time for music unless it was lullabies or Barney songs. Four kids came along between 1984 and 1990 and I don't remember any pop culture from the 80's or 90's. Folk songs from my bluegrass days worked well as lullabies but before long life just got so busy that I forgot to sing.

Then slowly, I remembered singing and the way it felt to wrap harmonies around each other like a vine. I missed it terribly and still do.

But, I digress. I was going to writ about theme songs.

One night several years ago, Charlie and I went to a folk festival and a woman named Lui Collins performed. I liked all of her music but her last one floored me--before she had finished her last chord, I was out of my seat and headed to the CD table to purchase a copy. The song is Swimming to the Other Side and it's by Pat Humphries. This is an interesting NPR interview with Pat Humphries about the song.

This song is definitely my theme song--any time I need to re-focus these are the words I remember--Here's the chorus.

Swimming to the Other Side
By Pat Humphries

We are living 'neath the great Big Dipper
We are washed by the very same rain
We are swimming in the stream together
Some in power and some in pain
We can worship this ground we walk on
Cherishing the beings that we live beside
Loving spirits will live forever
We're all swimming to the other side

A night at the Bluebird

Today, my cousin Texican wrote about country music and posted a mighty fine country song that he wrote. Songwriters are blessed with a gift to be able to conjure up an image, an emotion and a story and to package it with a beat and a melody that makes people want to sing along. If I had 3 wishes, one of them would be, just one time, to create a song that made people laugh and cry and sing along.
One of my many favorite country songs is about country music songwriters. It's called 16th Avenue and it's written by Tom Schuyler and was made popular by Lacy J. Dalton.

From the corners of the country
From the cities and the farms
With years and years of living
Tucked up underneath their arms

They walk away from everything
Just to see a dream come true
So God bless the boys who make the noise
On 16th Avenue

With a million dollar spirit
And an old flattop guitar
They drive to town with all they own
In a hundred dollar car

'Cause one time someone told them
About a friend of a friend they knew
Who owns, you know, a studio
On 16th Avenue

Now some were born to money
They've never had to say "survive"
And others swing a 9 pound hammer
Just to stay alive

There's cowboys, drunks and Christians
Mostly white and black and blue
They've all dialed the phone collect to home
From 16th Avenue

Ah, but then one night in some empty room
Where no curtains ever hung
Like a miracle some golden words
Rolled off of someone's tongue

And after years of being nothing
They're all looking right at you
And for awhile they'll go in style
On 16th Avenue

It looks so uneventful
So quiet and discreet
But a lot of lives were changed
Down on that little one way street

'Cause they walk away from everything
Just to see a dream come true
So God bless the boys who make the noise
On 16th Avenue

16th Avenue in Nashville is called the heartbeat of Nashville's Music Row. Another place that most aspiring country songwriters dream of is the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Tennessee. Last summer when we went to visit another favorite cousin outside of Nashville, C was able to go to the Bluebird and perform two songs that he had written.

The Bluebird has an Open Mic night for songwriters every Monday. The doors open at 5:30 but the line of hopefuls forms long before that.

Some of the performers are really good, some not so much, but each one of them is living a dream up there on the stage at the Bluebird. C had number 13. There had been several sub-optimal performances before his number was called and people at the tables had begun to be restless and talk to one another--but within a few chords, he had the audience following his every word--a high school english teacher from Maine living a dream on the stage at the Bluebird.

Late night radio

We were a traveling family, chasing jobs and dreams all over the country while home remained Mississippi and Kentucky. After 9 years--home is Maine--for the first time in my life where I live feels like home. But for all those growing up years, we would travel from where we lived to either Mississippi or Kentucky for holidays. The summer was mostly spent in Kentucky but we would also travel to Mississippi for a few weeks each August--August in Mississippi, now there's a treat.

The Thanksgiving trips, when time was of the essence, are the ones that I am thinking of today. It was difficult getting from Massachusetts, where we lived at the time, to Kentucky and back in just a few days. Mom was a teacher and, of course, my brother and I were in school. We would get out of school at noon on Wednesday and Dad would pick us all up with the station wagon packed and we would hit the road. In those days, I don't think we even had seat belts and so Brother and I would bounce around in the back seat or the back of the station wagon. We carried our food with us and only made brief stops for gas. When it got dark, Dad would pull over and put down the back seat and make a bed out of mats and blankets we had brought from home. We were supposed to lie down and sleep while Mom and Dad drove through the night. Usually, though, at least in my memory, I would either hang over the seat and talk to my father or sit up front with him while Mom and Brother slept.

As we drove the late night highways, Dad would tell stories about where we were going and we would listen to the radio. I loved those crackly far-away stations where I could just imagine other lives and other places. I still love the radio at night when I am driving--Baseball, Prairie Home Companion and Country Music are my first listening choices--but just about anything helps to pass the miles.

On Youtube, I found this video .

"I Watched It All (On My Radio)" by Lionel Cartwright (Don Schlitz/Lionel Cartwright)

I had a six transistor when I was a kid
Under my pillow I kept it hid
When the lights went out, and no one could see
Over the airwaves the world came to me

I'd go through the stations 'til I found a game
I knew how they played by the sounds of their names
The sluggers hit homers, and those pitchers threw smoke
And I watched it all on my radio

At the crack of the bat, I knew how far it'd go
And I watched it all on my radio
I watched it all on my radio

When the ballgame was over, the wrapup complete
I'd search through the static 'til I found a beat
The Beatles and Creedence, the Stones and the Byrds
You should have seen all the groups that I heard

And on Saturday night when the skies were all clear
A station from Nashville sometimes would appear
With steel guitars and soft Southern twang
The stars of the Grand Ole Opry would sing

And I had a seat on the very front row
And I watched it all on my radio
I watched it all on my radio

And 'round about midnight some preacher came on
To tell me what's right, to tell me what's wrong
And there was a test at the sound of the beep
'It was only a test' the voice would repeat
And the National Anthem would sing me to sleep

Snow Day

A snowy morning in Dixfield. The call that the teenager and the teacher in our house listen for just came in, so they will be home and safe today.

I'm keeping an eye on the judiciary website but expect to be driving over the mountain for an all-day trial.

My cousin, Dennis Price, wrote this poem about snow and sent it to me to use in one of my posts since he writes from the southernmost tip of Texas and couldn't imagine that he would have an opportunity to use it. Thanks, Texican, it's a good one!

SNOW

The snow fell

stacking silent flakes

one thin matrix on another

covering winter’s brown and dormant scene.

Fresh cold air,

white kaleidoscope,

changing pickets and tree branches.

Moving texture,

windborne criss-cross swirl.

Soft to touch,

bright to see

against a backdrop, gray.

"Down on My Knees" by Ginger Andrews from An Honest Answer. © Story Line Press.

Down on My Knees

cleaning out my refrigerator
and thinking about writing a religious poem
that somehow combines feeling sorry for myself
with ordinary praise, when my nephew stumbles in for coffee
to wash down what looks like a hangover
and get rid of what he calls hot dog water breath.
I wasn't going to bake the cake

now cooling on the counter, but I found a dozen eggs tipped
sideways in their carton behind a leftover Thanksgiving Jell-O dish.
There's something therapeutic about baking a devil's food cake,
whipping up that buttercream frosting,
knowing your sisters will drop by and say Lord yes
they'd love just a little piece.

Everybody suffers, wants to run away,
is broke after Christmas, stayed up too late
to make it to church Sunday morning. Everybody should

drink coffee with their nephews,
eat chocolate cake with their sisters, be thankful
and happy enough under a warm and unexpected January sun.

Run, River, Run

Watching the River Run

By Kenny Loggins, Jim Messina

If you've been thinking
You're all that you've got,
Then don't feel alone anymore,
'Cause when we're together,
Then you've got a lot
For I am the river
And you are the shore.

And it goes on and on,
Watching the river run,
Further and further
From things that we've done
Leaving them one by one
And we have just begun
Watching the river run;
List'ning and learning
And yearning;
Run, river, run.

Winding and turning
And dancing along,

We passed by the old willow tree,
Where friends embrace
As we sing them our song,
Rejoicing together
As we greet the sea.

And it goes on and on,
Watching the river run,
Further and further
From things that we've done
Leaving them one by one
And we have just begun
Watching the river run;
List'ning and learning
And yearning;
Run, river, run.

And it goes on and on,
Watching the river run,
Further and further
From things that we've done
Leaving them one by one
And we have just begun
Watching the river run;
List'ning and learning
And yearning;
Run, river, run.

Another generation

C took his guitar into school yesterday and played a Dan Fogelberg song for the kids so they could share the beauty of the music and know why all the folks between 40 and 60 felt a loss. For his high school English students, he played this

Leader Of The Band

An only child alone and wild, a cabinet maker's son
His hands were meant for different work
And his heart was known to none
He left his home and went his lone and solitary way
And he gave to me a gift I know I never can repay
A quiet man of music denied a simpler fate
He tried to be a soldier once, but his music wouldn't wait
He earned his love through discipline-- a thundering, velvet hand
His gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand
(Chorus)
The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
I'm just a living legacy to the leader of the band
My brothers' lives were different for they heard another call
One went to Chicago and the other to St Paul
And I'm in Colorado when I'm not in some hotel
Living out this life I've chose and have come to know so well
I thank you for the music and your stories of the road
I thank you for the freedom when it came my time to go
I thank you for the kindness and the times when you got tough
And, papa, I don't think I said 'I love you' near enough
(Chorus)

We watched this performed on a Youtube video and speaking after the performance, Dan Fogelberg said that after "Leader of the Band" there was nothing left unsaid between he and his Dad, who died shortly after the song was written.

Thanks for the music

Yesterday, Dan Fogelberg died at his home in Maine.

Run For The Roses

Born in the valley and raised in the trees
Of Western Kentucky on wobbly knees
With mama beside you to help you along
You'll soon be a-growing up strong
All the long, lazy mornings in pastures of green
The sun on your withers, the wind in your mane
Could never prepare you for what lies ahead
The run for the roses so red
(Chorus)
And it's run for the roses as fast as you can
Your fate is delivered, your moment's at hand
It's the chance of a lifetime in a lifetime of chance
And it's high time you joined in the dance
It's high time you joined in the dance
From sire to sire, it's born in the blood
The fire of a mare and the strength of a stud
It's breeding and it's training and it's something unknown
That drives you and carries you home
(Chorus)

A Time to Talk

A Time to Talk," by Robert Frost from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Henry Holt).

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don't stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven't hoed,
And shout from where I am, 'What is it?'
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.