Jubilee
So I got a few comments on my poem about the fellow from Lincoln County going up north to make a living and coming home every chance he could get only to find that his family was dying off. The poem is the final act for the guy as he unexpectedly died and is being taken to the old burial grounds on the homeplace. And
as I was thanking the folks for their comments and explaining a little about it, when I tried to post it to the comments section, Blogger has a burp a nd loses my harangue. Dagnabbit, I hate Blogger when that happens. Well, no, not hate. I don't hate anything that can't help itself. Heck, I may have hit a wrong button---naaah, not when it spits out an error message like that. It admitted it made the mistake and gave me document number about as long as my arm and half my shoulder and said to get in touch with Blogger Support. Yeah, and where is the link? Aint there, baby. AND I DON'T HAVE TIME TO MESS WITH THEM ANYWAY. I'd just end up hollering at them anyhow and my blood pressure is more important than that.
Well, the reason for this post is to explain what the poem was all about and to explain that none of it is about me. Actually, it isn't. I never have lived in Lincoln County, or Cleveland, or Youngstown or Akron. I have no direct experience along the line of the poem. Except that, upon graduation from Marshall back in '63, I took a job in Parkersburg. Better that than the job in New York or the one in Michigan--come to think of it there was one in DC, too.
I did do the every two or three weeks return to Huntington for a year or so. Then it got to be every month or so. You know how it goes. You get tied into another community and begin losing ties that you never thought you would. Then for various and sundry reasons, I found myself between jobs (resigned one and took a six week vacation waiting for the next one to start was part of it) and back in Huntington. A couple of my brothers had returned from their western sojourn and were on their way to the Cleveland area. Neither had jobs waiting on them, although another brother who was in Cleveland already had told them he could get them on out there. And sure enough he did.
And both of these two stayed in Cleveland the rest of their lives (one at least, the other still lives there.) When the one died, he was brought back to this area and is over in Miller Cemetery these last fifteen years or so.
And within a few years of this hegira to Cleveland occurring, I met my wife (she was working in Cleveland but I met her here in Cabell County while she was taking a week or two off.) Her folks lived in Lincoln County. Her dad was a disabled miner and had a large number of brothers and sisters. Many of them had made the hegira too, only to northwest Ohio. And they were faithful to the return, every holiday or once a month whichever came first. Back down Hillbilly Highway on Friday night and back up on Sunday afternoon.
They were a great group of people, salt of the earth, and taught me how to work on cars every time they came in. Theirs were always broken down and we had to fix them to get them back home again, or we tore them down just for the bleep of it so we could put them back together again, I guess. And you know, every dadblamed one of them said they were going to be brought back to either Lincoln or Logan County when they died. Just about every one expected to retire and move back.
But none of them did. They retired, grew old and died and were buried in the communities in which they had lived most of their lives. Each had expressed to me the desire to have themselves and their wives buried in the family graveyard on top of the hill where my father-in-law lived. None were. Only the old people were there. And their old ones and brothers and sisters. And aunts and uncles. The graveyard took up one whole side of the hill--over the top and down into the other hollow.
Rather than wander through the memories this is bringing up to me, here is a poem I wrote back in 2003. I wrote it for my mother-in-law, a woman I loved and admired as if she were my birth mother (and that takes nothing away from Mom, either.) Granny lived to be 91. She passed away about two years ago. But I can still see the love in her eyes for her children and all her family. And I know the faith she had.
JUBILEE
On the hill behind the homeplace,
In a graveyard overgrown,
Lie the old ones of my family,
And their daughters and their sons.
There I'll go when life is over,
On this earth no more to roam.
I'll go up there on that mountain
To sleep in Jesus' arms.
All my loved ones will be weeping.
I'll have a smile upon my face,
Lying there among my old ones,
Safe in everlasting grace.
Then when all of time has passed
That ever there will be,
He'll come to us and take us
Home for eternity.
Then we'll be in Heaven with Him.
And we'll walk that Golden Strand.
And there we'll live in glory
Singing with that Angel Band.
No more pain and no more sorrow
On this earth for you and me.
We'll be with Him there forever.
JUBILEE! JUBILEE!
Now, after I get the tears out of my eyes, again, I'll go on a piece.
When I wrote that originally, I thought, well, maybe it isn't what she will appreciate. How wrong could one soul be. That was only the second poem I had written in this latest phase of writing. I wasn't really sure it was something I wanted to do. I always was particularly happy to write plain simple prose and forget the fancy schmancy stuff.
She loved it. Her tears matched mine. And she said, "Where did you find this?" And I said, "Here in my head. I wrote it just for you." She hugged me and said, "Promise me that you will write more." And I have.
I think I've told before of the small book of verses I put together for my grandkids. Amazing, out of the blue sometimes, one of them will want to discuss one of those poems. I didn't think any of them were especially great. But they do. And that is pleasure for me. Not that they like my poems. But that they are reading them and thinking about them and want to consult this old geezer about them. But especially that they are questioning and learning and becoming young men and women that just will not accept what others say, they want verification, they want proof, they want vindication of their views.
And what more could PaPa ask of them?
I enjoy writing. I enjoy reading. Which one the most? Hard to say. When I'm reading I want to be writing. When I'm writing I want to be reading. One stimulates the other. And when I'm writing and the ideas are flowing and the bluegrass is ringing in the cd player over my head, life is good. Or reading with Tony Mottola or Chet Atkins or Floyd Cramer playing soft and low, life is good.
When my Compaq loses it's hard drive and I go a week without being able to create, I go crazy.
I love life and all the good things and all the bad things that go with it. Life without salt and pepper would be dull, dull dull. Some of the good things that go with it are friends, whether known personally, or, like you, are known through the net, and not so friends, the ones I argue with. They play a vital role in keeping my wit as acerbic as I can stand it to be. And keeping me on my toes learning new things that I can write about later. I like for them to criticize me and my way of gouging them. I invite them to do so.
So, enough for tonight. I've saved the draft, in case Blogger wants to duke it out with me again! Not only that, I actually came back and re-edited it. So, I missed one or two. Bite me!
as I was thanking the folks for their comments and explaining a little about it, when I tried to post it to the comments section, Blogger has a burp a nd loses my harangue. Dagnabbit, I hate Blogger when that happens. Well, no, not hate. I don't hate anything that can't help itself. Heck, I may have hit a wrong button---naaah, not when it spits out an error message like that. It admitted it made the mistake and gave me document number about as long as my arm and half my shoulder and said to get in touch with Blogger Support. Yeah, and where is the link? Aint there, baby. AND I DON'T HAVE TIME TO MESS WITH THEM ANYWAY. I'd just end up hollering at them anyhow and my blood pressure is more important than that.
Well, the reason for this post is to explain what the poem was all about and to explain that none of it is about me. Actually, it isn't. I never have lived in Lincoln County, or Cleveland, or Youngstown or Akron. I have no direct experience along the line of the poem. Except that, upon graduation from Marshall back in '63, I took a job in Parkersburg. Better that than the job in New York or the one in Michigan--come to think of it there was one in DC, too.
I did do the every two or three weeks return to Huntington for a year or so. Then it got to be every month or so. You know how it goes. You get tied into another community and begin losing ties that you never thought you would. Then for various and sundry reasons, I found myself between jobs (resigned one and took a six week vacation waiting for the next one to start was part of it) and back in Huntington. A couple of my brothers had returned from their western sojourn and were on their way to the Cleveland area. Neither had jobs waiting on them, although another brother who was in Cleveland already had told them he could get them on out there. And sure enough he did.
And both of these two stayed in Cleveland the rest of their lives (one at least, the other still lives there.) When the one died, he was brought back to this area and is over in Miller Cemetery these last fifteen years or so.
And within a few years of this hegira to Cleveland occurring, I met my wife (she was working in Cleveland but I met her here in Cabell County while she was taking a week or two off.) Her folks lived in Lincoln County. Her dad was a disabled miner and had a large number of brothers and sisters. Many of them had made the hegira too, only to northwest Ohio. And they were faithful to the return, every holiday or once a month whichever came first. Back down Hillbilly Highway on Friday night and back up on Sunday afternoon.
They were a great group of people, salt of the earth, and taught me how to work on cars every time they came in. Theirs were always broken down and we had to fix them to get them back home again, or we tore them down just for the bleep of it so we could put them back together again, I guess. And you know, every dadblamed one of them said they were going to be brought back to either Lincoln or Logan County when they died. Just about every one expected to retire and move back.
But none of them did. They retired, grew old and died and were buried in the communities in which they had lived most of their lives. Each had expressed to me the desire to have themselves and their wives buried in the family graveyard on top of the hill where my father-in-law lived. None were. Only the old people were there. And their old ones and brothers and sisters. And aunts and uncles. The graveyard took up one whole side of the hill--over the top and down into the other hollow.
Rather than wander through the memories this is bringing up to me, here is a poem I wrote back in 2003. I wrote it for my mother-in-law, a woman I loved and admired as if she were my birth mother (and that takes nothing away from Mom, either.) Granny lived to be 91. She passed away about two years ago. But I can still see the love in her eyes for her children and all her family. And I know the faith she had.
JUBILEE
On the hill behind the homeplace,
In a graveyard overgrown,
Lie the old ones of my family,
And their daughters and their sons.
There I'll go when life is over,
On this earth no more to roam.
I'll go up there on that mountain
To sleep in Jesus' arms.
All my loved ones will be weeping.
I'll have a smile upon my face,
Lying there among my old ones,
Safe in everlasting grace.
Then when all of time has passed
That ever there will be,
He'll come to us and take us
Home for eternity.
Then we'll be in Heaven with Him.
And we'll walk that Golden Strand.
And there we'll live in glory
Singing with that Angel Band.
No more pain and no more sorrow
On this earth for you and me.
We'll be with Him there forever.
JUBILEE! JUBILEE!
Now, after I get the tears out of my eyes, again, I'll go on a piece.
When I wrote that originally, I thought, well, maybe it isn't what she will appreciate. How wrong could one soul be. That was only the second poem I had written in this latest phase of writing. I wasn't really sure it was something I wanted to do. I always was particularly happy to write plain simple prose and forget the fancy schmancy stuff.
She loved it. Her tears matched mine. And she said, "Where did you find this?" And I said, "Here in my head. I wrote it just for you." She hugged me and said, "Promise me that you will write more." And I have.
I think I've told before of the small book of verses I put together for my grandkids. Amazing, out of the blue sometimes, one of them will want to discuss one of those poems. I didn't think any of them were especially great. But they do. And that is pleasure for me. Not that they like my poems. But that they are reading them and thinking about them and want to consult this old geezer about them. But especially that they are questioning and learning and becoming young men and women that just will not accept what others say, they want verification, they want proof, they want vindication of their views.
And what more could PaPa ask of them?
I enjoy writing. I enjoy reading. Which one the most? Hard to say. When I'm reading I want to be writing. When I'm writing I want to be reading. One stimulates the other. And when I'm writing and the ideas are flowing and the bluegrass is ringing in the cd player over my head, life is good. Or reading with Tony Mottola or Chet Atkins or Floyd Cramer playing soft and low, life is good.
When my Compaq loses it's hard drive and I go a week without being able to create, I go crazy.
I love life and all the good things and all the bad things that go with it. Life without salt and pepper would be dull, dull dull. Some of the good things that go with it are friends, whether known personally, or, like you, are known through the net, and not so friends, the ones I argue with. They play a vital role in keeping my wit as acerbic as I can stand it to be. And keeping me on my toes learning new things that I can write about later. I like for them to criticize me and my way of gouging them. I invite them to do so.
So, enough for tonight. I've saved the draft, in case Blogger wants to duke it out with me again! Not only that, I actually came back and re-edited it. So, I missed one or two. Bite me!
posted by tanstaafl | 7:51 PM
4 Comments:
I like your poem, Dad. And what you said about the kids and also about Granny.
The only kid who hasn't read your poems is Shellie---her book is still wrapped in top of her closet. I am going to have to get it down for her and let her see some of them. I'm not sure if she is old enough to appreciate them all, though.
See ya later.....
I loved my mother-in-law more than I ever thought possible. I knew her for only three short years before she passed, and, in fact, cared for her much of that time. She would have truly loved your poem, as I do. It was an honor to know her while she was here, and I also made her a promise, which I intend to keep until the day I pass from this life, too--a personal one, that I won't share, but it is one that, over time, has molded me into a more patient, forgiving person. She was a smart woman.
My great grandmother was buried in our family cemetery. Someday in the hopefully not so near future, my grandmother and great aunt will be, too. And they are probably the last in our immediate family that will be. It is out in East Lynn across a creek and way up a hill that, as a child, I walked several times a year. They all grew up out there, beneath that hill and a ways down the road...and my grandmother still talks, at 84 years old, about a desire to move back out there. The property at the bottom of that hill was for sale last year, and I set my mind to buying it. No...I couldn't really afford it, but something in me wanted it so bad I could taste it. You know that feeling? But my great aunt said no, and I respect her advice. She was right. No family is out there anymore--no one alive, anyway--and it just wasn't practical. So I'll just keep making the drive and climbing the hill, for the rest of my life, I reckon.
I love life, too. And your love for it comes through in everything you write. I like very much reading Kelsie's comments, also. It does a heart good to know some families are still so close. It really does.
AND, I am just learning to love bluegrass! Well, in the past year or so. I live with a new Doyle Lawson fanatic, and it really just kind of snuck up on me. Whoddathunkit?
Tom T. Hall said, "They say you can't go home again, but, brother, I was there. And I believe that no one really cares." (Pratt Street).
But, you can, as he says, go home again. And does anyone really care? Some do. Some don't. And in any event, it really isn't home anymore. It is not what we thought home was going to be, and we are always disappointed.
A few years ago, I wrote a series of vignettes tied to the hollow I grew up in, sort of taking a cue from Stuart and his W Hollow. Mine was never so good as his. Regardless of his failures and successes, his writing is so far beyond mine that I just sit at the masters feet and worship.
But what I learned in doing those vignettes, is that I have a very different view of what my life was than what my brothers see their lives as being up in that hollow. Not only that, but my view of the same people varies greatly from theirs.
My intention is to bring those vignettes to my blog, so I'll not say too much more about them, except that some of the people in them are some of the same ones who populate my poetry.
And, by the way. Neither Granny nor her husband were buried in that family plot. They moved to Ohio and then back to WV in the 1970's and took up residence about eight miles from where I now live. Both are buried in a graveyard within eye distance of the place where they both passed away, up on top of a hill looking into the sunrise. All their children have plots around Granny and the old guy. Including my wife and I. And Kelsie.
Well, I'll look forward to reading them, then. And yeah--my sisters both moved away as quick as they could and have no desire to come back anywhere near here. Funny how we all grew up in the same place in the same way and see it so differently. But, hey, that is part of what makes life so interesting. Looking very forward to hearing about the hollow you grew up in.
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