The Best of Slim Acres: July 2011

Sunday, July 31, 2011

THE DEVIL'S EDGE

Saint Peter and Satan, they say,
Had a big disagreement one day,
And their tempers soon escalated;
Each thought the other should fix
The gate by the River Styx,
Which kept their domains separated.

As he spoke in the red telephone,
Saint Peter, in menacing tone,
Told the Devil his patience was waning;
He said, "I guess you're the sort
That has to be taken to court,
That's my only recourse remaining."

The Devil cackled with glee,
He said, "You're gonna sue me?
Just how do you think you can do it?
Consider a minute or two,
Because, I think, if you do,
You'll find there's a little more to it!

"If you threaten invasion of Hell
By force, I know very well
You might raise a great army of warriors;
But when you say you will sue,
That's a horse of a different hue.
Old boy, you don't have any lawyers!"

--The Buckeye Poet (1991)

Sunday, July 24, 2011

WEATHER WORDS

Editor's note: "Nobody is happy about the weather all the time," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem. "Some complain about it more than others, and everybody comments on it when they can't think of anything else to say."

Whatever the kind of weather
You'll seldom hear me complain;
It makes no difference whether
It's a blizzard or mid-summer rain.

Or when the north wind is blowing,
Cold enough to tingle your spine,
Or sleeting or hailing or snowing,
With me, the weather is fine!

If the mercury goes above ninety,
And it's muggy and humid today,
No matter how droopy I'm feeling,
I'll declare the weather's okay!

I don't prefer lousy weather,
Could do very well without it;
But since I can't have my druthers,
There's no use to holler about it.

Snowing, blazing or blowing,
In Summer, Winter or Fall,
Whatever kind we are having,
It's better than nothing at all!

To the Man who creates the weather,
I say, "You're doing just fine,
And I won't complain about your work
If you don't complain about mine!

Hominy Grits (1986)

Sunday, July 17, 2011

IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD!

Editor's note: "Positive thinking is a powerful weapon against the encroachment of senior debilitations," Dad wrote as the introduction of this poem. Amen to that, but I'll be the first one to add that the older I get the harder it is to do!

The bitter pill of growing old,
I'm sure you've heard it said,
Is really just a state of mind,
It's only in your head.

Father Time exacts from all
A toll, but it appears
Some maintain the glow of youth
Into their senior years.

I understand this premise,
And I'm willing to concede
A youthful way of thinking
Helps to keep you young indeed.

Observing different ways of life
Would lead us to conclude
How well you handle growing old
Is in your attitude.

Your friends may all assure you
There is little cause for dread
Of growing old, because it's
Altogether in your head.

But when they put it that way,
Somebody's kidding you;
Take it from your Uncle Slim,
It's other places, too!

--Eighty After Eighty (1995)

Sunday, July 10, 2011

NET WORTH

Editor's note: "Your assets are listed on one side of the sheet, and your liabilities on the other," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem. "I guess you're not supposed to add them together."

My banker said he'd like to have
A statement, up to date,
So he could see, in black and white,
My true financial state.

The numbers didn't seem to make
A bit of sense to me;
I didn't have a bottom line,
As far as I could see.

To solve the whole dilemma,
It was clear the only way
Was to give the whole kaboodle
To the local CPA.

How that fellow pawed the dust
Was something else to see;
At handling figures, he could make
A monkey out of me!

He noted what my income was,
And showed how much I spent;
He spelled it out, precise and clear,
Where every nickel went.

He showed a right substantial sum,
There on the bottom line;
But then, he went and spoiled it
With that ugly minus sign!

--Eighty After Eighty (1995)

Sunday, July 3, 2011

FRIED CHICKEN

Editor's note: Since many folks are enjoying picnics and cook-outs in honor of Independence Day this weekend, I thought this poem would be appropriate. Nothing, I hasten to add, has ever tasted better than fresh-from-the-coop chicken fried up in a pan by my mother -- dad's "Lucy" -- even though most times I had to help her scrape off all the pinfeathers first (dunking the bird in a bucket of boiling water and then adding a little elbow grease usually did the trick)!

They call it Southern recipe,
They call it finger-lickin';
I guess there's fifty-seven ways
For fixin' frying chicken!

Some brown it on a griddle,
After they stew or bake it;
But no one fixes chicken
Like my mother used to make it!

Half a dozen spices,
Or eleven -- doesn't matter;
Mom used salt and pepper
In a milk and cornmeal batter.

The bony parts are useless,
Mom never even fried 'em;
Now they sell 'em anyhow,
But try their best to hide 'em.

The wishbone's non-existent,
And the thighs are abrogated;
The breast is subdivided,
With the ribs incorporated.

That chicken used to have a tail,
Protruding out behind it;
And I suspect it's there somewhere,
If only I could find it!

You can use a pressure cooker,
Or you can broil or grill it;
But don't tell me you fried it
If it never saw a skillet!

--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