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Fairweather Lewis


 Nostalgia: BJ and the Duke
 

Remember John Wayne playing Davy Crockett in THE ALAMO (1960)?

Davy Crockett Pictures, Images and Photos

For me, his performance is all tied up with memories of playing with my nephew Bubba one sunny winter afternoon, when Bubba was still under a year old. He's a strapping six-footer now, handsome, sweet and still my baby, of course, coming up on his twentieth birthday. At the time though, I wrote this poem about simultaneously watching THE ALAMO and playing with Bubba, whose nickname then was his initials or such cute variations on same as Beejums (or as my dad called him, Bejabbers). He had, at the time, one of those Sesame Street mobiles, lest you think I've gone a little farther off the rails than usual.

**********************************************************************

Davy Crockett looks and sounds suspiciously like John Wayne
trapped for thirteen days of glory
at the siege of Alamo
but we play along with both legends

while you exercise new-found powers
gripping Cookie Monster's foot secure in your wee south paw
Big Bird takes swinging evasive action
until, frustrated, you flail away
right fist effective as a thrown brick

tiring of that, you bounce in my arms
ignoring Davy/Duke's flat drawl
but fascinated by the blood-bright/virgin white uniforms
of Santa Anna and his army of extras
the sun blinding on gold braid

they strut in cadence
to the martial rattle of drums
and the insistent blare of tin horns

gunfire, cannon smoke
fallen horses rolling on fallen men
and Davy fallen like a gored bullfighter

You're playing squid now
tentacles dragging my fingers toward your powerful jaws
to use for teething toys

your hand-eye coordination, a bit off, takes them on the chin

Duke, reborn as Chisum, dishes out fists
momentarily diverting attention from you

imperious infant divine-right monarch
you raise a yell of protest

why should you share your patch of sun
with some old dead duke?

**********************************************************************

Poem copyright 1990/2009 by Fairweather Lewis

Posted by Fairweather Lewis at 3:24 PM - 2 Comments   Add a Comment  
 

 Well, Slap My Face and Call Me Prescient
 

I never thought, when I posted the sad story of Harman and Margaret Agnew Blennerhassett last week, that this would turn up in the Washington POST's Travel Section (in print last Sunday, online today):

On a West Virginia Isle the Mystery of It All

Just wish this article had included more pictures of the reconstructed Palladian mansion.
Posted by Fairweather Lewis at 12:11 PM - 8 Comments   Add a Comment  
 

 The Phantom Horseman of Bottlebrush Down
 

(Moonstone asked awhile back if I knew of any ghost stories involving barrows, those ancient burial mounds that dot the English countryside. So, Moon, this one’s for you.)

One of my favorite collectors of ghost stories was the late James Wentworth Day (1899-1983) of Great Britain. He was a Tory to the bone, verging on fascist, an unrepentant racist and homophobe, and wrote in a turgid style far more suited to the Victorian era than his own, but he knew a good ghost story when he heard one. I first read his account of the ghostly Bronze Age horseman of Dorsetshire in John Canning’s anthology FIFTY GREAT GHOST STORIES (1971).

Day begins his account by noting that ghosts of prehistory are rare, perhaps because even ghosts wear out over millenia. He was thrilled, therefore, in 1956 to receive a letter from antiquarian R. C. C. Clay, who recounted his encounter with a Bronze Age horseman along what is now the A3o8I road between the Dorset villages of Cranborne and Sixpenny Handley, on a stretch of farmland known as Bottlebrush Down.

In 1924, while conducting archaeological excavations in the area, Clay was driving home just before twilight one evening. He had reached a spot where the modern road crosses one from the Roman period when he spotted, off to one side, a horseman riding hell for leather out of a pine thicket and across an adjacent field, as if to cross in front of him. Instead of crossing the road, though, the horseman turned his horse’s head and rode parallel to Clay, keeping pace with the vehicle at a distance of about forty yards.

Clay described the horseman:

I could see that he was no ordinary horseman, for he had bare
legs, and wore a long loose cloak. His horse had a long mane
and tail, but I could see neither bridle nor stirrup. His face was
turned towards me, but I could not see his features. He seemed
to be threatening me with some implement, which he waved in
his right hand above his head.

The horseman continued riding parallel to Clay for some three hundred feet. Clay was able to identify him, by his clothing and the weapon he brandished, as being from the late Bronze Age. He did not stop to investigate when the horseman vanished, as darkness was falling, but he returned the next day to the same place and found, at the point of disappearance, a low, round barrow, presumably a burial place for man and horse.

Clay was a bit of a skeptic, and he tried many times over the following months to ascertain if the horseman could have been a trick the fading light played on his tired eyes, but eventually gave this idea up when inquiries proved that he was not the only one to have seen the horseman.. One old shepherd, when asked if he had seen any ghosts on the downs, replied, "Do you mean the man on the horse that comes out of the opening in the pinewood?" He, at least, had no doubt that he had seen the horseman, and more than once.

Clay was told, a couple of years after his experience, that a couple of girls biking from Sixpenny Handley to a dance at Cranborne had recently complained to the local police of a man on horseback who followed them for some distance over the downs, frightening them quite badly. His description matched Clay’s.

Try as he might, Clay never saw the phantom horseman again. He wrote in 1956 of his experience in answer to Day’s letter to a newspaper in Salisbury, in which Day had asked if anyone had ever seen a prehistoric ghost.

Nor did he excavate the barrow where the horseman vanished, although he felt sure he would find the bodies of the horse and rider there. Day theorized that the horseman suffered some fatal injury, perhaps while hunting in the pine forest, rode out across the field, and was buried where he collapsed and died, his horse also being killed and buried with him.

The Phantom Horseman of Bottlebrush Down remains one of Dorset’s most famous ghosts to this day, although there seem to be no reports of his appearance later than the 1926 sighting by the two girls on their way to a dance.

Maybe, after millenia, he has gone on to his Bronze Age afterlife.

Doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t look for him, though, should I ever find myself on the Dorset downs.

And until next time, fair thee well.
Posted by Fairweather Lewis at 2:54 PM - 4 Comments   Add a Comment  
 

 Talkin' Hillbilly, Part 2: Critter Comparisons
 

(Part two in an irregularly scheduled series of lectures by Professor Fairweather on the correct usage and pronunciation of hillbilly expressions, with assistance from Professor Mom, with occasional input from that redoubtable granny woman, philosopher and retired spy, Aunt Ornery.

Please bear in mind that Professor Fairweather is still quite a young thang, and some of these expressions are so old that not even our venerable Auntie knows their origins.

Now, back to our lecture.)

Hillbillies have a way of comparing some human characteristics and actions to those of animals (aka "critters" or "varmints", themselves corruptions of "creatures" and "vermin"). In many cases, the comparisons are an insult to the animal kingdom.

One such is frequently used in reference to sech varmints as used car salesmen and them politicians up in Worshington. That expression is "crooked as a dog’s hine laig"—i.e. the person has very few ethics or morals when it comes to business dealings. When the dubiousness of their dealings is especially egregious, the expression becomes "crookeder’n a dog’s hine laig." And that, my dears, is pretty dang crooked.

Another expression that would be appropriate when sech a varmint jumps at an especially crooked business deal, or when a person takes exception to some comment made by another person, or even when a person finds another exceptionally attractive is "He [or she] jumped on that like a chicken on a June bug." June bugs are actually called "may beetles" but we refer to them as June bugs because they show up in late June when blackberries start to ripen. Chickens find them irresistible morsels.

Chickens figure into other expressions as well. No doubt you’ve heard "runnin’ round like a chicken with its head cut off" to express being extremely busy; in that case, it’s the accent more than anything that makes it distinctly hillbilly. Another is the end result of what happens to them varmints what’s crookeder’n a dog’s hine laig when their evildoin’ catches up to them: "them chickens is come home to roost." (Auntie uses another expression, learned from her mother, that "what goes over a dog’s back comes up under its belly". In other words, fellers, yer done an’ in trouble when that happens.)

Small, feisty people of either sex can be referred to as "banty" (i.e. bantam) "roosters", supposedly more aggressive than their larger counterparts. More problematic is referring to a woman as being like "an old broody hen"—a hen who is sitting on eggs or protecting newly hatched chicks—when she turns feisty.

And then of course, there is the immortal expression for taking precautions after the fact: "lockin’ the henhouse when the fox is done gone." Related expressions involve hawks—"lockin’ up the henhouse when the hawk’s done gone" and mules—"lockin’ the barn when the mule done got out."

In hillbilly, the expression "pretty as a picture" somehow got transmogrified long long ago into "purty as a speckled pup in the sunshine." Lord knows how.

Frogs and toads figure into several expressions. One my late dad used to describe a hard rain was "toadstrangler." Another, for when a person is all puffed up with pride or indignation, is "swole up like a toad". One of Professor Mom’s favorites, usually used when Blackadder trys to convince her that of all the pitiful critters in the world, he’s the pitifullest, is "Now why are you a-blinkin’ at me like a frog in a hailstorm?" (Before you ask, no. She apparently learned that one from her parents and grandparents.) An answer to a question about how one is feeling on a given day is "fine as frog hair." That expression is used in Catherine Marshall’s book CHRISTY, which is set in 1912. Since frogs have no hair, reckon a body coud’n be no finer.

Somewhat related to "swole up like a toad" to express indignation or pouting is "sulled up like a possum". Possums, that marsupial more often seen as roadkill than living, also literally gave rise to "playing possum"—rolling over and playing dead to avoid trouble. And when a hillbilly finds something funny but the situation is such that laughing out loud is not a good idea, he "grins like a possum." He also occasionally "grins like a mule eatin’ sawbriars." I never really figured out why those low-growing, slashing thorns that grew wild in pastures in the old days were such delicacies for mules, but I ain’t a-gonna argy with my ancestors.

From hunters who chase their prey with dogs, we get "runnin’ a sight race". Beagles running rabbits frequently do this: they run heads up and baying rather than noses to the ground, tracking by sight rather than scent. Sort of like runnin’ to a shoe sale in town, ladies? (^_~)

Grandparents, when asked about the behavior of their grandchildren, will invariably reply, "they’re mean as a striped snake." This is merely a variation on "mean as a rattlesnake", but a word of warning here: this expression is a privilege strictly accorded to the actual grandparents. If you tell said grandparents the same thing ABOUT their grandkids, you’re liable t’ git an ol’-fashioned butt-whuppin’.

Another expression uses snakes to describe a lazy person: "why, he wood’n strike a lick at a snake." Even if he were in danger of being bitten.

Someone who is angry or embarassed is occasionally described, for their flushed face, as "redder’n a turkey gobbler’s snout" (i.e. wattle).

And last but not least, my favorite of them all, used to refer to wet or icy roads: "slicker’n owl grease." It’s a euphemism, Professor Mom tells me, for "slicker’n sh*t."

Now y’all take this lesson t’ heart. There will be a midterm. (^_~) And until next time, class dismissed.

Posted by Fairweather Lewis at 1:53 PM - 14 Comments   Add a Comment  
 

 Going Home by Moonlight
 

Going Home by Moonlight

Autumn leaves divider Pictures, Images and Photos

The street is too silent tonight for comfort

the pavement, still wet from early rain
gleams an uncommon gold
as the moonlight creeps and peers
around the curve

a sneaky bandit of my peace

haven lies just across the way
but I jump, startled
by a soft sashay of wind in the trees
jump back, unnerved

by the lights and shadows at the windows
the ghosts behind the glass
the living haunts in the tall old house

the stories that haunt my pen

Autumn leaves divider Pictures, Images and Photos

The other evening I was doing research for a future blog about the great Irish Gothic writer Joseph Sheridan LeFanu (1814-1873) when I realized that the cover art on the 1994 Wordsworth Classics edition of his MADAM CROWL'S GHOST AND OTHER STORIES is a painting by John Atkinson Grimshaw. It's called "Going Home by Moonlight" and is, to my eye at least, more than a little spooky, considering that many of LeFanu's stories are set in mansions very similar to the one in the painting.

Autumn leaves divider Pictures, Images and Photos

Poem copyright 2009 by Fairweather Lewis

As products of insomnia go--it's not a good poem, but not exactly a bad one either.
Posted by Fairweather Lewis at 1:05 AM - 8 Comments   Add a Comment  
 
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