Father's Day 2011
Dad has a number of friends whom he hangs out with periodically. (Sorry-that should read “out with whom he hangs periodically.”) They’re lovely, nice people, but this being Utah, their politics lie just to the right of Mussolini’s; and like the majority of Utahns, they have quaint-and incorrect-notions about things like science, history and the divinity of Ronald Reagan. Things that can easily be refuted by means of a little research.
I suspect that Dad is highly skilled at suppressing his response when one of his friends voices an opinion he disagrees with. But like me, he feels an obligation to correct someone if what they say is factually wrong. He’ll march out a list of evidence to the contrary, and if pressed, can invariably produce articles from the Web to back him up. His companions are actually quite impressed with this show of expertise on a variety of subjects. They ask him, “How do you know all this stuff?”
He replies, “I spend my time reading instead of watching Dancin’ with the Stars.”
His friends then look sheepish and shuffle about as if embarrassed by their smug ignorance.
That’s just how I’d like to spend my retirement. Not educating ignorant Utahns, but learning new stuff. A major hassle of having a job is that it cuts so heavily into my reading time; and a major source of enjoyment I derive from my job is expanding my knowledge of science and medicine.
When I was little we kept a tree frog and a bullfrog in an aquarium. Their names were Archy & Mehitabel. The original Archy and Mehitabel were a free-verse poet reincarnated as a cockroach, and a feline friend of his (when she wasn’t trying to eat him). Archy typed out poetry and other things, usually complaints about his wretched life as a cockroach, by jumping on a (manual) typewriter’s keys.
I haven’t thought about the frogs or their namesakes for ages, until the brother posted this verse from one of Archy’s poems, “the song of mehitabel.” Mehitabel is speaking in first person:
i have had my ups and downs
but wotthehell wotthehell
yesterday sceptres and crowns
fried oysters and velvet gowns
and today i herd with bums
but wotthehell wotthehell
i wake the world from sleep
as i caper and sing and leap
when i sing my wild free tune
wotthehell wotthehell
under the blear eyed moon
i am pelted with cast off shoon
but wotthehell wotthehell
The second-to-last line got my attention, because Dad used to call shoes “shoon” when we were kids. I thought he’d borrowed it from the German, but this was a more likely source. (Also, German for shoes is Schuhe.) I asked him about it last Sunday, and he told me he’d actually derived it from the name of a class of creature from Li’l Abner called the shmoo-plural, shmoon.
Reading the Song of Mehitabel also inspired me to finally read the lives and times of archy & mehitabel, which I could only find at my university’s library. I went in expecting something humorous and light-hearted. But although Archy gets in a few wry jokes, it’s dark, very dark, and I loathed irresponsible, nihilistic Mehitabel. I feel the loss of a particularly cherished childhood fantasy being dispelled by cold-hearted reality.
It is appropriate, then, that the last we saw of Archy the tree frog was his feet disappearing down Mehitabel the bullfrog’s gullet, following the rest of him.
I suspect that Dad is highly skilled at suppressing his response when one of his friends voices an opinion he disagrees with. But like me, he feels an obligation to correct someone if what they say is factually wrong. He’ll march out a list of evidence to the contrary, and if pressed, can invariably produce articles from the Web to back him up. His companions are actually quite impressed with this show of expertise on a variety of subjects. They ask him, “How do you know all this stuff?”
He replies, “I spend my time reading instead of watching Dancin’ with the Stars.”
His friends then look sheepish and shuffle about as if embarrassed by their smug ignorance.
That’s just how I’d like to spend my retirement. Not educating ignorant Utahns, but learning new stuff. A major hassle of having a job is that it cuts so heavily into my reading time; and a major source of enjoyment I derive from my job is expanding my knowledge of science and medicine.
When I was little we kept a tree frog and a bullfrog in an aquarium. Their names were Archy & Mehitabel. The original Archy and Mehitabel were a free-verse poet reincarnated as a cockroach, and a feline friend of his (when she wasn’t trying to eat him). Archy typed out poetry and other things, usually complaints about his wretched life as a cockroach, by jumping on a (manual) typewriter’s keys.
I haven’t thought about the frogs or their namesakes for ages, until the brother posted this verse from one of Archy’s poems, “the song of mehitabel.” Mehitabel is speaking in first person:
i have had my ups and downs
but wotthehell wotthehell
yesterday sceptres and crowns
fried oysters and velvet gowns
and today i herd with bums
but wotthehell wotthehell
i wake the world from sleep
as i caper and sing and leap
when i sing my wild free tune
wotthehell wotthehell
under the blear eyed moon
i am pelted with cast off shoon
but wotthehell wotthehell
The second-to-last line got my attention, because Dad used to call shoes “shoon” when we were kids. I thought he’d borrowed it from the German, but this was a more likely source. (Also, German for shoes is Schuhe.) I asked him about it last Sunday, and he told me he’d actually derived it from the name of a class of creature from Li’l Abner called the shmoo-plural, shmoon.
Reading the Song of Mehitabel also inspired me to finally read the lives and times of archy & mehitabel, which I could only find at my university’s library. I went in expecting something humorous and light-hearted. But although Archy gets in a few wry jokes, it’s dark, very dark, and I loathed irresponsible, nihilistic Mehitabel. I feel the loss of a particularly cherished childhood fantasy being dispelled by cold-hearted reality.
It is appropriate, then, that the last we saw of Archy the tree frog was his feet disappearing down Mehitabel the bullfrog’s gullet, following the rest of him.