A Splash of Nash

Mug Shot. Ink & dyes on illustration board

When my grandfather retired and my grandparents moved back to West Virginia, my grandmother designed the house they built. Instead of wainscoting, the living room was lined with bookshelves. In the basement there was one room that consisted of four walls of bookshelves, floor to ceiling. 

Among other things, Grandma was an avid reader. One of the books in her living room was a fat, maroon hardcover volume of poems by Ogden Nash. Nash (1902–1971) was an American poet and humorist renowned for his witty, light verse. Born in Rye, New York, he gained fame through his playful, often whimsical poetry that combined clever wordplay, puns, and unexpected rhymes. 

His poems humorously explored everyday life, human quirks, and societal absurdities. In addition to writing for The New Yorker I've since learned that he also wrote lyrics for Broadway shows.

You'd think that writing humorous pithy prose would be easy, but I'd suggest it's not as simple as you'd think. Nash makes it look easy, though. He published 20 books of poetry for children of all ages. 

Here's an example, and why I often pulled his large volume off he shelf to peruse now and then when visiting my grandparents.

Family Court

One would be in less danger

From the wiles of a stranger

If one's own kin and kith

Were more fun to be with.

😎 

Here are a few of my own short pieces. 

One True Measure 

We measure our lives

by one True Measure:

Our proximity--Far or Near,

Day by Day, Year by Year--

to our Heart's Treasure.

e.

Eclipse

In the days of the Solar Eclipse

when the sun for a time hid its face

the creatures of night all emerged to explore

the strange world of non-light at mid-day. 
e.

Childhood's Beauty

It knows not the darkness,

or rather, lacking words

to define what is only sensed,

the child escapes

in innocence.

e.

To Be

Authentic inclinations 

-- to thine own self be true --

without inhibitions, 

get in touch with your roots.

e.

Things My Mother Used to Say

Self-Portrait. Mexico, 1981

This week I've been thinking a lot about how to end racism, probably like a lot of people these past few weeks. I don't think any reasonable person is desirous to see the recent tensions remaining as something we "just have to live with." (Perhaps this is, in part, what so moved me about the film about Mr. Rogers that I'd watched yesterday.)

While reflecting on these things, something my mother used to say came to mind.

"A man convinced against his will
is of the same opinion still."

The saying was made famous by Dale Carnegie, though its apparent origin is from the pen of Mary Wollstonecraft, early British feminist and mother of Mary Shelley the famous author of Frankenstein.

Racism has to end. It's bad for all races. But the how of it is going to be the thornier problem. This saying gives a glimpse of the kinds of tactics that won't work.

* * * *

Thinking about this led me to recall a couple other things Mom said when I was growing up. Here's a second.

"Oh what a tangled web we weave
when first we practice to deceive."

If you always tell the truth, it's less likely to get you tripped up under cross-examination.

* * * *

A third saying that came to mind was this one: "Boys will be boys." My mom had four of them and she would know. (We had no sisters.) But when I talked with her this morning, she gave it a quite different spin.

"People would say, 'Girls are different from boys,' and I would say, 'Boys are different from boys.' All four of you were different." 

This was an interesting observation, and very true. Each us were very different in many respects, though I've oft observed that I share common traits with each of my brothers.

* * * *

A trait that I share with my mother is an appreciation of poetry. I'd always assumed I gained my fondness for reading and writing poetry through my grandmother, who likewise wrote poems and had been influenced by an uncle who wrote poetry, John Hall, the blind poet of Ritchie County. But as I thought on the sayings above with their poetic qualities, I realized that my attraction to verse was closer to home.

This morning she told me that when she was in high school she got extra credit for memorizing poetry. "So I memorized a lot of poetry," she says. "I bought 101 Famous Poems and liked to read Robert Burns."

One of the poems she remembered from her high school days was a pre-Civil War poem about how terrible it was see Negroes chained up and being sold. It evidently made such an impression on her that she remembers it 75 years later.

* * * *

Mom said she liked to quote Ogden Nash sometimes.  I recall a big fat book of Ogden Nash poems on my grandmother's bookshelf in her living room. (Instead of wainscoating, Grandma had bookshelves along some of the walls.) Nash wrote pithy short verses like these.

The Camel
The camel has a single hump;
The dromedary, two;
Or else the other way around.
I’m never sure. Are you?


A Word to Husbands
To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.

I wish I'd memorized this last when I when I was younger.

* * * *

On Progress

“Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.” ~ Ogden Nash

The most recent Computerworld magazine featured an article called “Information Overload” by Mary Brandel. She begins by citing the remarks of Jeff Saper, a tech firm chief information officer who drives a hybrid car and has been highly sensitive to green issues. Saper’s concern today, however, is not air and water pollution. Rather, it’s digital pollution, information overload.

Change is a challenge for everyone, but we can usually find ways to make necessary adjustments when the changes come piecemeal. On the other hand, when a tidal wave of new technologies hits us all at once impacting every facet of our lives, it really can make us feel like we are drowning.

Even this morning this issue interfered with my life. I was wakened early by a periodic chirping noise. Assuming it was one of our three fire alarms with a low battery, I sat here and then there and then over by the stairs trying to determine which was the one, tracking down the source like a good Sherlock Holmes. Well, turns out to have been inside a pouch on the kitchen counter. My wife's cell phone battery was low, needing a charge.

How I long for the good old days of my youth when the most complicated decision you had to make was whether to throw to first or hope to get the lead runner sliding into third. The way we increased volume on our bicycles was to put baseball cards in the spokes, not electronic gadgets on the handlebars. Nearly any task on a car's engine could be figured out with a wrench, logic and common sense.

Nowadays, our cars are far more complex, as well as our bikes, our phones, our jobs and our lives. Computers are in most homes in America, but how many IT people live at your house? Not many homes come with an IT technician, so we have to learn how to fix modems, debug software, figure out anti-virus programs, and resolve Internet access issues just to do basic daily correspondence (via email, of course).

In short, we live in a world of mental clutter. In addition to complications caused by all these technical advances, our minds are filled with a trunk load of relationship issues, career issues, parenting issues, health issues, housing issues, problems with neighbors, addictions, mental “to do” lists and more. It’s simply a side effect of living a busy life in the modern world. Our heads are filled with a continuous “white noise” or mental chatter that serves as a perpetual distraction.

This is what “progress” in the civilized world has brought us to, it seems. No wonder we’re so distracted, neurotic and frenetic.

I remember sitting in the back seat of a car with a twelve year old boy in the 1980’s who was able to solve Rubik’s Cube in less than a minute. I couldn’t do the thing to save my life, yet here was this kid who simply astounded me with the rapidity of his hand movements directed by conscious decisions.

Later, upon reflection, I realized that he could devote 100% of his attention to the problem of solving the Cube. I was using only ten per cent of my brain, preoccupied as I was with career decisions, relationship issues, financial issues, etc. How wonderful to live in that age of innocence called youth.

Alas, youth is pretty short lived. Sooner or later, despite Peter Pan’s intentions to the contrary, most of us have to assume a measure of responsibility and participate in the modern world. At least, if you are a Westerner.