FOR THE TIME BEING

It’s been some time since I laid some poetry on you, but all good things must end (i.e., your luck has run out). What I’m getting at is, I’ve decided to resurrect a few old poems, as well as come up with a new one or two. If you object, you have the right to remain Soylent* because….

*Soylent: foodstuff made of soybeans and lentils

A POEM OF EXCEPTIONAL TASTE

Soybeans and lentils — what a treat!
I can think of nothing I’d rather eat!*
Just savor the flavor — they can’t be beat*….
But then, I’m a groundhog, so I don’t eat meat.

*except for watermelon: https://riversworld.live/2020/09/04/summer-means-watermelon/

I’LL TAKE A BRAINCHECK

“The difference between intelligence and wisdom is that intelligence is knowing half of what you hear or read is garbage, and wisdom is knowing which half.” –Seymour Fisher

From dilemmas of that class,
You’ll have to exempt me —
I’m still stuck on “Is the glass
Half full or half empty?”

WISE-ASS PLATITUDES

Utmost is the wisdom of the platitude —
But most, sadly, are lacking in latitude.
Is there never need for deviance?
I think I shall file a grieviance!
The grounds? Let’s just say they have an ATTITUDE.

LONG TIME, NO SEE

Youth is the stuff of time and place
The race of years cannot erase,
Seen through eyes too unwise to see
That all was not what it seemed to be.

Age is the stuff of hedging bets,
Of things undone and old regrets,
Seeing ourselves as others do,
Thinking “And so, what else is new?”

 

RETIREMENT TIME

Hard as it may be (for me, at least) to fathom, it seems that many people approaching retirement don’t look forward to it because they don’t know what they’ll do with all the time they’ll have when they have no job. That has never struck me as a problem, what with books to be read, writing to be written, learning to be learned (unless you already know everything), trips to plan, music to enjoy, sports to follow, chores to avoid, mislaid items to look for, naps to take, etc….not to mention human behavior forever to be baffled by.

Believe me, friends, if I had half the time my once-upon-a-time fellow wage slaves assume I have, I would be posting a post almost every day instead of once a week or so (which, I concede, may still be too often for you malcontents and party poopers out there).

So, how busy am I?

Oops — how did that clip get there? Fact is, I’m so busy, I don’t even have time to think of more to say about the subject….so I’ll avoid that chore by passing it on to others:

I have never liked working. To me, a job is an invasion of privacy. –Danny McGoorty

I’ve crunched the numbers in your retirement account. It’s time to figure out who will be wearing the mask and who will be driving the getaway car. –Unknown financial advisor

My retirement plan is to get thrown into a minimum security prison in Hawaii. –Julius Sharpe

I will not retire while I’ve still got my legs and my make-up box. –Bette Davis

The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off. –Abe Lemons

I find the biggest trouble with having nothing to do is you can’t tell when you’re done. –Unknown

As for me, except for an occasional heart attack, I feel as young as I ever did. –Robert Benchley

I can’t wait to retire so I can get up at 6 a.m. and drive around real slow and make everybody late for work. –Unknown

What do you call a person who is happy on Monday? Retired. –Unknown

When a professional golfer retires, what does he retire to? –Evan Esar

When you retire, you switch bosses — from the one who hired you to the one who married you. –Unknown

Time’s up. COMING, DEAR!

 

 

 

A NAME BY ANY OTHER NAME

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. –William Shakespeare

• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When I was young, the above was one of the first truisms I remember coming upon which took me beyond the surface of its simple truth….a proposition, if you will, that by any other name would be as true. After all, what is a name but a representation of what must be named because how else are we to picture in common what is being referred to?  For example, if my name were Mister Muttonhead, I would still be me, though my name would be Mister Muttonhead, not Mister Muse (and I would still smell as sweet).

With that in mind, I thought I’d try my hand at furthering the Bard’s example by expounding on his original paradigm, to wit:

Flour by any other name would smell as wheat.

An alert cat by any other name would smell a rat.

An antique by any other name would cost far less.

The God of man by any other name would smell like WHAT’S UP WITH THAT.

Time by any other name would smell like a flier on life.

A duck by any other name would quack like the other name.

A Donald Trump by any other name would quack like an amuck Donald Duck.

Thanksgiving turkey by any other name would smell like a thankless (but not tasteless) turkey.

Such is life. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

 

 

TIME FLIES

It is said that “Time flies when you’re having fun.” As for me, time flies when you can’t believe a certain young woman and I will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary this fall, and next year on June 23, the oldest of our two daughters (Big One and Little One) will celebrate(?) her 50th birthday. How is it possible that one day the young woman and I got married, and the next thing we know, our girls are older than my oldest clothes (though not by much). Time and fun fly when ‘hangers-on’ in the closet look the same as decades ago….but the reflection in the mirror looks like Methuselah’s grandfather. 😦

The moral of the story?

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

Then be not coy, but use your time
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

–Robert Herrick (from his poem TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME, 1648)

In other words, take the advice of legendary songwriter Irving Berlin (1888-1989) and….

Oh….I almost forgot: Happy 49th Birthday, Big One!

 

 

A PASSING EXAMPLE OF ROAD SAGE

BUMPER STICKER:
TIME IS WHAT KEEPS EVERYTHING FROM HAPPENING AT ONCE

I hate to be
the one to tell you,
but everything IS
happeningatonce.

Such being the case, I am taking a few weeks off from blogging* to catch up on what happens when one gets behind from blogging. Be back some time in mid-to-late June. Meanwhile….

*other than replies to comments, & checking in on your blogs from time to time

 

IT’S ABOUT TIME AGAIN

Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations. –Faith Baldwin

A year ago today, I published a post titled IT’S ABOUT TIME which, as it happens, was about time. That post featured songs about time, such as TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE (which is all about time playing the role of an impatient gadabout). For this year’s edition, with Daylight Saving Time coming up this upcoming weekend, I thought I’d save myself time by posting quotes, like the Baldwin above, that carry on the time theme (which almost rhymes with crime scene, which is a site where it is suspected a pun has been committed in bad Faith). So, without further ado, it’s time to get down to cases:

Things money can’t buy: Time. Inner peace. Character. Manners. Respect. Morals. Trust. Patience. Class. Dignity. –Roy T. Bennett [almost identical with ‘Things on Trump’s Top Ten Never To Do list’]

I have no faith in human perfectibility. Man is now only more active – not more wise – than he was 6,000 years ago. –Edgar Allan Poe [man “more active” in Poe’s time? Of course he was — humans had yet to become Couch Po(e)tatoes]

Throughout history man’s inventions have been timesavers — then came television [100 years post-Poe]. –Evan Esar

I’m afraid of time…I mean I’m afraid of not having enough time — time to understand people, how they really are, or to be understood myself. I’m afraid of the quick judgments or mistakes everybody makes. You can’t fix them without time. –Ann Brashares

It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning. –Vincent Van Gough

I am almost a hundred years old; waiting for the end, and thinking about the beginning. There are things I need to tell you, but would you listen if I told you how quickly time passes? –Meg Rosoff

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. –William Faulkner

It takes a lifetime to die and no time at all. –Charles Bukowski

And meanwhile time goes about its immemorial work of making everyone look and feel like shit. –Martin Amis

Enjoy life. There’s plenty of time to be dead. –Hans Christian Andersen

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time. –Jorge Luis Borges

Over the silent sands of time they go/lovers come/lovers go/and all that there is to know/lovers know/only lovers know. –“Sands Of Time” lyrics, from 1955 film KISMET

 

 

PARDON MY QUOTES

It is easier to buy books than to read them, and easier to read them than to absorb them. –William Osler

• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Now that’s a quote I can relate to — of the near-50 books I bought at that November used book sale I wrote about recently, in 3 weeks I’ve managed to find time to read all of 2 1/2; that’s all of two books (plus half of one) traversed in 21 days, as the crow flies. At that rate, I’ll have bought 50 more books before I’ve read an iota of my quota from the last batch — and I’ve already bought ten more books since then. Nonetheless (actually all the more, both batches combined), rather than completely skip a post as I did December 5, I’ll at least try to save composing-time by posting (aka com-posting) the words of others.

Fittingly, I’ll quote the six Masters of Wit (from my previous post) to whom Groucho Marx dedicated his book GROUCHO AND ME. The last quote below cites another timesaver some people practice, but rarely admit….however, I’ll open with Robert Benchley, who undoubtedly said the following following A Night At The Opera with the Marx Brothers:

Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.
–ROBERT BENCHLEY

I didn’t like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions  — the curtain was up.
— GEORGE S. KAUFMAN

An optimist is a girl who mistakes a bulge for a curve.
–RING LARDNER

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?
–JAMES THURBER

The fact is that all of us have only one personality, and we wring it out like a dishtowel. You are what you are.
–S. J. PERLEMAN

Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts.
–E. B. WHITE

• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEASON

 

In the unscheduled post which appeared here on my birthday (October 18th), my youngest daughter let the cat out of the bag — her old dog of a dad had just turned certifiably ancient, though I didn’t feel more than a day older than I did on October 17 as a young pup of 79. More’s the pity. Some say age is only a number….but it goes without saying that October is autumn. Yes, if you look at the calendar, September and November lay claim to autumn as well, but let’s be clear — nobody does autumn as well as October. So this will be a post of poems and quotes about aging and autumn, in that order (age before beauty).

AGE DEPLORE(s) BEAUTY

What passed for time
Before time was invented?
Before there was time,
How was time prevented?

If time had a beginning,
When did time start?
When it’s time that time end,
How will time depart?

Why are there times
When time frustrates and vexes….
And last, why must time
Do its thing to the sexes?

THE BIG FIX

While passing through,
I noticed that
this world is too much.
What big teeth it has.
What big eyes you need.
What big talk is heard.
Speak to me.
But not big.

I OF THE BE OLDER

If you think
I take life
too seriously you

are either

a night and
day younger than
I am or

I do.

• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I am so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. –L.M. Montgomery

Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves;
we have had our summer evenings, now for October eves. –Humbert Wolfe

Anyone who thinks fallen leaves are dead has never watched them dancing on a windy day. –Shira Tamir

The tints of autumn … a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter frost. –John Greenleaf Whittier

For anyone who lives in the oak-and-maple area of New England, there is a perennial temptation to plunge into a purple sea of adjectives about October. –Hal Borland  

Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower. –Albert Camus

Spring is too rainy and summer’s too hot;
fall is soon over and winter is not. –Evan Esar

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. –George Eliot

Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying. –Langston Hughes

Now Autumn’s fire burns slowly along the woods and day by day the dead leaves fall and melt. –William Allingham

NOTE: There have been many recordings of AUTUMN LEAVES over the years; I chose the French chanteuse Edith Piaf’s version because it was originally a 1945 French song titled “Les Feuilles Mortes”  (“The Dead Leaves”), and because October (1963) is the month Edith Piaf died and drifted by the window.

 

 

 

 

IT MIGHT AS WELL BE SPRING

In the spring, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. –Tennyson

As I write this on the eve (March 19) of posting it on the first day of spring, it might as well be spring because, as a once-upon-a-time young man, I’ve been turning to thoughts of love since I discovered it many springs ago….then I discovered that I hadn’t discovered it, but by then, it was too late to undiscover it. Or something along those lines. Love can be so confusing.

Anyway, like spring itself this year in Ohio, I’m getting a head start. I need time to gather spring songs for this post, an idea which arose out of my time songs post on March 10. But there seem to be even more love(ly) songs with “spring” in the title than with “time” in the title– so many, in fact, that it’s going to be hard to limit my spring song list to fewer than I’d love to share. But at least the title of this post suggests where to start:

For song #2, how about two for the price of one — both “spring” and “time” in one title:

Next, a long-forgotten spring song that’s a particular favorite of mine because its lyrics (by George Marion Jr.) are a marriage of exquisite simplicity and sophistication:

Wouldn’t you know it? Suddenly, the weather is turning colder. Now it looks like….

Well, it could be worse. If you live in the southern hemisphere, spring will not arrive for six more months. Fancy that! Fie on thoughts of love so late 😦 — why should those ‘down under’ wait?

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

Then be not coy, but use your time.
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

–Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Carpe diem.

IT’S ABOUT TIME

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. –Will Rogers

• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Daylight Saving Time arrives on March 13, when, under penalty of painful death or being forced to watch GOP debate videos every day for the rest of your life (you may find death preferable), by law you must arise at 2 a.m. to set clocks ahead one hour….or, if you don’t wish to get up at 2 a.m., you can simply stay up, which many all-night carousers among my readers do anyway (not naming names, of course, but you know who you are).

As a retiree, I have neither caroused nor set an alarm clock for years, so this presents a problem. On the one hand — which, by the way, many timepieces no longer have, much less two hands (they now have digitalis or some such new-fangled technology) — I may just ignore Big Bro and risk the consequences. On the other hand, I could drink a gallon of coffee, stay up, and when the time comes, set my clocks ahead –or is it back — one hour?

Last year, my wife reminded me of an easy way to remember which is which: in spring, spring forward; in fall, fall back….to which I said, “Fine — if it’s so easy, you get up and do it.” Unfortunately, my wife has no sense of humor and cleaned my clock. By the time I came to, it was too past two, so I thought to hell with it, and fell back to sleep. Who needs Daylight Saving Time anyway? If there must be a Saving Time, there ought to be a

To my fellow earth-and-time-sharing fellow Americans, Mexicans, Franciscans, Anglicans, Wiccans, pelicans, toucans of Cannes who can cancan as too few can….and even Republicans: as you know, these are mean times we’re in. It’s enough to drive you cuckoo. I say it’s time to tune out, take a break, and enjoy some timeless old time songs:

A note on There’ll Come A Time, played by Frank Trumbauer’s Orchestra featuring the great and legendary 1920s cornetist Bix Beiderbecke: Bix was born on this day, March 10, 1903 (less than two years after his friend, Louis Armstrong), and died tragically young of alcoholism/pneumonia at age 28. Actually, Bix Beiderbecke never died….he just ran out of time. His sound was so transcendent, remembered guitarist Eddie Condon, it hit you where you lived, “like a girl saying yes.”

I see by ye olde clock on yawnder wall that it’s past midnight. Time to Hit the Road to Dreamland* — but that’s another song for another day.

*by Harold Arlen & Johnny Mercer, 1942