The Best of Slim Acres: Harold Pickett

Showing posts with label Harold Pickett. Show all posts

Sunday, June 19, 2011

THE SANDS OF TIME

Editor's note: Today is Father's Day, and later this week -- June 24 -- will mark the second year since Dad passed away.

The sands, we know,
Relentless, flow,
And, as the seasons pass,
Each golden grain
Will surely drain
Into the lower glass.

We cannot slack,
Nor hold it back,
Nor is it in our power
To take away
A single day,
Or add a single hour.

We'll never see
It come to be
That Time will turn in flight
Thereby to give
Us to relive
A numbered day or night.

We can't command
The trickling sand,
But its passing we may ease,
If, in its place
We've filled the space
With golden memories!

--Acres of Verse (1994)

Sunday, April 24, 2011

NOAH'S CONCERN

Editor's note: "Sometimes our faith is shaken because our prayers aren't 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 Japheth,
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!

--Eighty After Eighty (1995)

Sunday, March 6, 2011

OLD DOGS

Editor's note: "Just because an adage has been around for a long time is no reason it can't be challenged," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem. As for me, special thanks goes to a wonderful young man from "back home" who found and sent me a copy of Hominy Grits, the only one of Dad's books I didn't have. It's chock full of wonderful poems, so Chris, I can't thank you enough!

Old dogs never learn new tricks
As quickly as younger ones do;
This saying leaves the assumption
It applies to old people, too.

But let me tarry a moment
To put a bug in your ear --
Old dogs are oftentimes better
At learning than they may appear.

Maybe the trouble is really
The tricks you're trying to teach,
Like a preacher on Sunday morning
With a lousy sermon to preach.

Maybe the old dog is slower
Accepting newfangled ways
Because he has better judgment
Than back in his earlier days.

Don't ever take it for granted
That he's unable to learn;
Maybe you haven't impressed him,
And he just isn't giving a durn!

And let me add a reminder,
By way of summing it up:
Many an old dog remembers
The tricks he learned as a pup!

Hominy Grits (1986)

Sunday, January 17, 2010

UPS AND DOWNS

Now it has been established,
People everywhere behave
On a scientific schedule,
From the cradle to the grave.

They call it biorhythm,
And it's easy understood--
We have a string of bad days,
Then we have a string of good.

With rhythmic undulations,
Like the tide, it ebbs and flows,
Going up to reach the high points,
Then down into the lows.

Sometimes I do have good days,
When I'm really going strong,
But more, it seems, the other kind,
When everything goes wrong!

If I could change the program,
I'd be having, goodness knows,
A little less of this kind,
And a little more of those!

--Square Marbles (1978)

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

BRIGHTEN YOUR CORNER

Editor's note: There's an old-time hymn titled "Brighten the Corner Where You Are" -- I remember my mother humming it quite often as she set about dusting the knick-knacks and cleaning up the breakfast dishes. I don't know if that's where Dad got the inspiration for this poem, but it sums up quite well his philosophy for living and gives us all something to think about during this holiday season.

You don't need a whole lot of money,
You don't have to travel afar;
You can brighten your own little corner
By helping wherever you are.

You'll never relieve all the heartaches
You encounter along the way,
But a smile, a word or a handshake
Might brighten somebody's day.

There's laughter that ought to be pealing,
And songs that ought to be sung,
Music that should be resounding,
And chimes that need to be rung;

Hearts that need to be brightened,
And hunger that needs to be fed,
Burdens that need to be lightened,
Kind words that ought to be said.

So, right in your own little corner,
You'll find there is plenty to do,
And the light that you bring to another
Has a way of reflecting on you!

--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