The Best of Slim Acres: August 2010

Sunday, August 29, 2010

NOAH'S CONCERN

Editor's note: "Sometimes our faith is shaken because our prayers are not answered," Dad wrote in the introduction to this poem. "Sometimes, our prayers aren't answered because we're not asking for the right things."

Four hundred and fifty feet long
The ark stood three stories high;
The seams well-coated with pitch,
To keep all the occupants dry.

Two of every known creature,
Down to the tiniest bug,
Noah took them on board,
And made them cozy and snug.

He and all of his kinfolks
Were finally quartered inside;
His sons were Shem, Ham and Japeth,
Whose wives went along for the ride.

Then all the fury of Nature
Cut loose the very next day;
It rained from the first week in April,
Almost to the middle of May.

The gates of the heavens were opened,
And the water spilled and it poured,
But Noah was never affrighted,
He'd been assured by the Lord.

And so his faith never faltered,
Tho it went on week after week;
He didn't pray for the rain to stop --
He prayed his boat wouldn't leak!

--Acres of Verse (1994)

Sunday, August 22, 2010

HAIR TODAY - GONE TOMORROW

Editor's note: "A bald head is a Heavenly thing; there is no parting there," Dad quipped as the introduction to this poem.

My neighbor Sam is frugal bent;
He holds on tight to every cent.
And almost all his married life,
His hair's been barbered by his wife.

Clippings from her trusty shears
Accumulated through the years,
For she adored his curly locks,
And saved them in a storage box.

But Father Time is known to bring
Degressive change to everything;
And so, my neighbor, thru the years,
Grew less and less above his ears.

So there's no reason, here of late,
To snip or slip on Sammy's pate;
His noggin's like a billiard ball,
With nothing growing there at all!

It almost broke his spouse's heart
To see his tresses all depart;
For, where his wavy crown had been,
Emerged a dome of barren skin.

But she's so glad she saved his wool,
Half a dozen boxes full;
Up in the attic, stored away,
Mementos of a better day,.

And often, when she's feeling low,
She'll take a little break and go
To spend a tender moment there,
Running her fingers through his hair!

--The Buckeye Poet (1991)

Sunday, August 15, 2010

THE MISFIT

Editor's note: "'One size fits all' -- hogwash!," Dad wrote in the introduction to this poem. "And almost as ridiculous is the idea that three sizes will fit everybody!" As a lanky, long-armed man who stood 6 feet 3 inches in his size 12 stocking feet, I guess he should know! Truth is, I feel his pain; the difference is that my challenge is sideways, not up and down.

A serious problem on my mind
Moves me to wax poetic;
I know that I will surely find
Many readers sympathetic;
For I am not the only guy,
With chassis long and tall,
Who does not fall within the class
Of medium, large or small!

I try to buy some underwear,
Some longies, if you please;
The ones that fit my torso
Won't reach below my knees!
I buy a large size jacket,
And the shoulders fit me fine;
But the sleeves don't nearly cover
These yard-long arms of mine!

I get pajamas extra large,
And the same with BVDs,
But they make me look like a scarecrow,
A-flappin' in the breeze!
Now I'm no freak of nature,
But I wasn't made at all,
To fit no dad-blamed pattern
Of medium, large or small!

I wouldn't be particular,
Nor hard to please, I swear;
All I want is something
That'll reach from here to there!
And when my robe they hand me,
Up above, on Judgment Day,
If it's small, or large, or medium,
I'm headin' the other way!

--Acres of Verse (1994)

Sunday, August 8, 2010

ROAS'N' EARS

Editor's note: "Sweet corn, cooked on the cob, has been one of my favorite foods ever since I was taken off the bottle," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem. I don't know if the gene pool plays any role in what our taste buds hanker for, but if does, I know where my love of "roas'n' ears came from!

Though I aim to be discreet,
I must admit I live to eat;
And I ain't found, in all these years,
Nothin' better'n roas'n' ears!

Steamin' hot, piled on a plate,
I might eat six, or maybe eight,
Or even more if I really tried
And was a little on the hungry side!

You can't be fancy when you're eatin'
Roas'n' ears, you can't be neat;
And people who enjoy 'em most,
Pay no mind to Em'ly Post.

If you can't afford high-priced spread,
Just smear on oleo instead;
Then cut loose and wade right in,
With grease a-drippin' off your chin!

Ever' six or seven rows,
Pause a bit and wipe your nose;
Take a breath of air, and then
Grab aholt and go again!

If your lowers tend to skid,
Put 'em in your pocket, kid;
You may not do a fancy job,
But you can gum it off the cob!

Slide that roas'n' ear to and fro,
Slowly rotate as you go;
When one is gone, pick up another --
That's what I call eatin', brother!

--Acres of Verse (1994)

Sunday, August 1, 2010

THE GREAT PYRAMID

Editor's note: "The greatest wonder in some of the noted doings of mankind is not so much in the worth of the venture as in the motivation behind them," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem.

Away out there, in the desert sand,
Near the River Nile, in Egypt land,
Cheops built the great pyramid,
(Or if he didn't do it, somebody did).
Seeing the thing, so lonely and bare,
You can't help wondering why it is there.

Standing four hundred eighty feet tall,
A stack of stones, worth nothing at all;
Experts say, to them it appears
It must have taken a great many years,
To build it there, at a terrible cost,
In money and time and lives that were lost.

It puzzles our present-day engineers
How, way back there five thousand years,
Builders with only primitive means,
No great engines or hoisting machines,
Managed to raise a structure they say
Would present a challenge, even today!

The great pyramid is the only claim
That Cheops has to a vestige of fame;
Where did this ancient Egyptian king
Get the idea to build the thing?
Nobody knows, but I'd bet my life
It was on a list made up by his wife!

--The Buckeye Poet (1991)

Why Slim Acres?

Growing up on a small 50-acre farm in southwestern Ohio back in the 1950s, I learned the value of honesty and a strong work ethic from my parents. Of course, I didn't appreciate it much back then -- what teenager wants to clean a room, mow an acre or so of front yard or paint the boards in the rail fence my father built (even if he did agree to pay me and my best friend Marcia 5 cents a board to do it)? All I knew was that my mother spent most of her time cleaning the house, tending to her beautiful flower gardens and conjuring up home improvement projects for my dad to complete when he wasn't doing something else.

The "something else" included a full-time day job as a tool-and-die engineer (later on as the manager of an entire plant). Until he retired, he had several different jobs, a couple of which required an hour's drive one way. He and my mother operated an evergreen nursery at our farm, so that meant they spent endless hours planting and cultivating. In between all that (and doing my mom's remodeling projects), dad managed to earn a law degree from a correspondence school and -- most important for the purposes of this blog -- transform himself into a sort of country bumpkin poet known as Slim Acres and later billed himself as "The Buckeye Poet." His real name, for the record, was Harold Asa Pickett.

"Slim Acres had a distinct personality," dad wrote in the introduction to Down Country Roads, his first book of poems. "He was a sort of combination of two genuine gentle bumpkins that I have known. One was an uncle of mine, born and raised in Tennessee, who could not write his name until after he married. The other one was a neighbor, also with a scanty formal education, but with a lot of common sense and wit. Both were as honest as peanut butter. Slim Acres embodied a few traits of each, and perhaps a little bit of me."

And his name? "I can't really say where his name came from, but it sounded fitting," dad wrote.

Slim Acres was "born" as a series of snippets titled "Slim Acres Says" submitted anonymously to the Times Gazette, the local newspaper in Union City, Indiana, such as:

The Golden Rule
Is easy fergot
If we'uns can git
What you'uns have got.

Those little ditties grew into years of being a popular humorous speaker at events ranging from club meetings to graduations throughout Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. But back in the mid-1930s, Slim's writing career got a boost Reader's Digest magazine published this poem:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue;
But they don't get around
Like the dandelions do.

In 1978, in his book Square Marbles, he revised this one just a bit:

Rose's are red,
Violet's are blue;
Jeanie's are pink,
With lace on 'em, too!

As he wrote and collected his poems, he published and sold them far and wide, starting with the flagship Down Country Roads. He drew heavily on his Quaker upbringing, his family, and of course, my mother -- the "Lucy" in his poems. Writing in Down Country Roads, he noted that there "is still something about rural life that is considerably different. It's hard to define, but it is there. It's a certain something that makes country people just a little bit friendlier, a little bit steadier, a little bit happier. Maybe it's the clean, fresh air; maybe it's the lack of confinement; perhaps the cooing of doves on a dewy morning, or the clear, starry skies on a winter evening: Perhaps a thousand other factors all put together."

He kept on writing: Shortly after his 80th birthday, he published what would be his final book, simply titled Eighty After Eighty. My mother passed away in 2000, and after something like 60 years of marriage, dad simply didn't want to live in a house by himself. So, he moved to the Brethren's Retirement Community in Greenville, Ohio. There, he continued to write poems -- even winning a state award for one of them -- right up until a week or so before his death on June 24, 2009, at the age of 96. Now, one of his sisters, my Aunt Olive, is continuing his tradition of having a poem in each issue of the home's newsletter, "Fanfare," by choosing one or two from his books to be published posthumously.

Lest I forget, there's one interesting note about that Reader's Digest poem: When it was accepted for publication, dad had a choice of a small cash payment or a "lifetime" subscription to the magazine. He chose the latter -- and it's pretty clear that the more than 60 years of magazines he received for free put him ahead of the game by far.

And so it is that I, too, wanted to keep the memory of his poetry alive. Lots of folks know him, be it by "Hap," "Harold" or "Slim." I've never heard anyone speak an unkind word about him, and I can count on the fingers of one hand (with a few fingers left over) the times he ever uttered a negative word about another human being. At his heart, he remained a simple, honest man for all of his 96 years -- a man I'm proud to have called my "Pop."

Hopefully, others will get to know him through this blog. My intent is to start with a couple of my favorite poems, adding a new one each week for, well, who knows how long? One thing is certain: I've got plenty of material. If you like what you read, please drop me a line!

Also, since I've been asked about whether copies of Dad's books are available, the gift shop at the Brethren's Retirement Community in Greenville has a stash of the Eighty After Eighty paperback that we donated after he passed away. I believe the book is selling there for $5, and the profits are put to good use helping residents in financial need. I also have a number of copies here at home -- I'll pack one up and mail it to anyone who's interested for $10 including postage. This is the only book for which multiple copies exist as far as we know.

--Ramonda Pickett Ryan (more commonly known as Monnie)

The Best of Slim Acres