The Best of Slim Acres: January 2012

Sunday, January 29, 2012

A SMILE

Like a little ray of sunshine,
On a dark and gloomy day,
Just a little bit of cheeriness
Will go a long, long way;
When things are going backward,
And a body's feelin' blue,
It's a most amazing wonder
What a friendly smile can do.

When the blahs have really got you,
Just remember that a frown
Is a most unpleasant picture
Of a smile that's upside down;
So, turn it up the other way,
You'll feel better if you do;
What's more, a lot of other folks
May take a cue from you.

So when I'm socializing,
Or just walking down the street,
I try to smile a greeting
To 'most everyone I meet;
While some may think I'm silly,
To be grinning all the while,
I may give a lift to others
With a warm and friendly smile!

Sunday, January 22, 2012

NOT LIKE I USED TO BE

"Most of us feel the effects of the passing years and often use time-worn phrases to remind our associates that we're not quite as young as we used to be," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem. "Sometimes it's a cop-out."

I'm not the man I used to be,
And I'll admit it's true
I can't kick up my heels and all
Like younger fellers do.

Youth is not eternal,
And it's very plain to see
The one we call Old Father Time
Has left his mark on me.

I don't complain, you understand,
Or feel my race is run,
I'm not in such a sorry shape
That I'm not having fun.

I guess it's just a custom
For older folks to say
They cannot cut the mustard,
As compared to yesterday.

"I'm not the man I used to be,"
I've often said before,
I said it once to Lucy,
But won't do it any more.

I might have known I wouldn't get
Any sympathy from her,
She looked at me and shook her head,
And said, "You never were!"

--Autumn Acres (1982)

Sunday, January 15, 2012

ODE TO WINTER

Editor's note: "Some folks dread to see winter arrive; others hate to see it go," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem. "I guess it depends on your appetite for weather."

The northern wind is howling
Like a banshee in the night,
Overcoating lawn and garden
With a coverlet of white.

Wires along the highway,
Whining in the cruel cold,
Cry that winter's got us
In its bitter strangle hold.

The hoary frost has settled
O'er the garden corner post;
In the pale moonlight it shimmers
Like an eerie sheeted ghost.

I appreciate the beauty
Of the snowy winter scene;
With the world in fleecy garments,
It appears to white and clean.

But let me clear the record,
So as not to be amiss--
It doesn't take me long to get
My belly full of this!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

STANDING IN LINE

Editor's note: "Some folks don't believe in making resolutions, but I think overcoming my shortcomings begins with recognizing them," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem. All I know is that there's no doubt I inherited the same gene.

We mortals have got
To suffer a lot
Of worry, hassle and strife;
We cannot attain
Exemption from pain,
For that is the essence of life.
Now, generally I
Am a good humor guy,
Hard knocks, I handle them fine;
But I must admit
I fester a bit
Any time that I stand in a line!

A checkout may go
In an orderly flow,
With nary a hitch or a fault;
But I'll guarantee,
With the entrance of me,
Everything will screech to a halt!
At times, I take heart,
As I chauffeur my cart,
And think I'm in excellent shape;
But then, up ahead,
Somebody drops dead,
Or a register runs out of tape!

I may carefully choose
The best line to use,
But the one I pick is a dud;
For reasons unknown,
My selection is prone
To move like a cow in the mud.
I surely agree
And acknowledge, to be
Considered a leader is fine;
But I caution you,
Whatever you do,
Never follow me in a line!

--Eighty After Eighty (1995)

Sunday, January 1, 2012

MY RESOLUTIONS

Editor's note: "The custom of making New Year's resolutions undoubtedly originated with the ancient Chinese, like most everything else," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem. "History does not record how successful they were in keeping them."

Self improvement ought to be
A goal for everyone,
And New Year's resolutions
Point the way to get it done.

It's a practice I have followed
Some fifty years, I'd say,
I make my resolutions
Never fail, come New Year's Day.

I'm glad I had the fortitude
To look inside of me,
And try to straighten out my life,
The way it ought to be.

I saw that I was falling short,
And therefore, I began
To search my soul for ways that I
Could be a better man.

It doesn't take a lot of thought
When once you've seen the light,
You realize that wrong is wrong,
And the only way is right.

My resolutions, this New Year,
Are very fine, I know,
For they're the very ones I made
Some fifty years ago!

--Autumn Acres (1982)

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