The Best of Slim Acres: poems

Showing posts with label poems. Show all posts

Sunday, August 21, 2011

MEALS ON WHEELS

Editor's note: "Many worthwhile programs don't get off the ground simply because their time has not come," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem. Or maybe, I'd suggest, government leaders just can't agree on what to do next.

The notion for meals on wheels began
Centuries ago, with primitive man.
The truth of the legend, nobody knows,
But this is the way the story goes:
With home-made spears, a Neanderthal pair
Went out in the woods and killed a bear.

After their hirsute tummies were tight,
One remarked, "A deplorable sight!
There's more bear here than we can eat,
What'll we do with this leftover meat?
It's a shame to let it spoil and decay--
Can't we dispose of it some other way?"

The other replied, "How true, how true,
And here's what I would suggest we do:
There must be many people out there,
Who'd love to have the rest of this bear;
We'll load these leftovers into our car,
And feed these folks, wherever they are!"

A kind and considerate thought, as it were,
A great idea, but premature;
They couldn't use their automobile,
For nobody yet had invented the wheel!
And that's why nothing was done back there,
And vultures consumed the rest of the bear!

--Eighty After Eighty (1995)

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, May 22, 2011

AT SEVENTEEN

Editor's note: "My hat's off to graduating seniors," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem. "I can even forgive them for being a little bit cocky. History repeats."

Looking back from later life,
On my emerging phase,
I marvel now, how bright I was,
In my adolescent days.

When just a toad-head youngster,
Hardly dry behind the ears,
I felt I'd grown in wisdom,
Far beyond my tender years.

Before I'd finished high school,
I was sure I had it made;
There couldn't be much more to learn,
Beyond eleventh grade!

And, after graduation,
For at least a year or so,
There wasn't any question,
I knew all there was to know.

I haven't suffered memory loss,
To any great extent;
But yet, I wonder, now and then
Where all that wisdom went!

I'd be the shrewdest pundit
Anyone has ever seen,
If I were half as smart today
As I was at seventeen!

--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 10, 2010

FLY-SPECK PHILOSOPHY

Editor's note: This one is a favorite of Dad's sister, Olive Alspach, who's a resident of The Brethren's Retirement Community in Greenville, Ohio, where Dad lived. It's a favorite of mine as well.

The Good Book tells us mortal man
Was made from common clay,
And also that in a thousand years,
To God, is like one day.

The vastness of the universe
Is hard to understand,
But every human being's like
One little grain of sand.

Contemplating all of this,
Eternity, and such,
The time and space we occupy
Just don't amount to much!

We linger very briefly,
On our way in passing by;
We cannot slacken off our pace,
No matter how we try.

It seems like only yesterday
That I was in my prime;
And now, in almost nothing flat,
I'm running out of time!

I sprang from dust, and soon will be
Returning to the same;
But though it's been too short a stay,
I'm awfully glad I came!

--Eighty After Eighty (1995)

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