Wednesday, March 18, 2015

A Kind of Welfare State for the Soul




Remember that? No reason you should. That's me descending to the Ohio River in Wheeling last late August, alone, it was Earthgirl's first day of school, she couldn't make the trip. Planet, her car ahead or behind me, I'm abandoning her the next day for her senior year in college but this day was so very excellent. Earthgirl and I will be making this same descent today four, five hours from now, but this time, since there's no point in our getting to Bamgier in late afternoon, we're gonna get off on US 250, drive through downtown Wheeling, eat lunch, cross the Ohio, drive north on Ohio 7, find the Martins Ferry Public Library: I want a photo of the street sign to a road named after a favorite poet. Then we'll drive on roads we've never driven for three, four hours. Sweet. By the time we get to Bamgier Earthgirl will have taken well over a thousand photos - slideshow w soundtrack tomorrow, or not. It's the opening of Planet's senior art show. If Planet says I can post a photo or two I will, if she asks me not to I of course won't, though loved ones, I will have photos and will share them with you once home.

A friend, in comments to previous post, mourns the end of 'more stuff' here. It's not that 'more stuff' is permanently terminated, it's that the compulsory 'more stuff' needs to be terminated. It's been easier than I thought it would be though only small credit goes to me - Blegsylvania is deader than ever, and the daily duh is duller than ever. When friends post, though, I will still link. Hint. Musicians sure to appear on the trip's playlist include:








AUTUMN BEGINS IN MARTINS FERRY OHIO

James Wright

In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,   
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,   
Dreaming of heroes.

All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home,   
Their women cluck like starved pullets,   
Dying for love.

Therefore,
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful
At the beginning of October,
And gallop terribly against each other’s bodies.




4 comments:

  1. i played the lambchop video and was reminded that the u.s. of a. is the country that elected nixon president two or maybe three times - some of the things he did made the world a better place - other things he did, not so much

    speaking of helmetball, considered in the poem by james wright, and 'galloping terribly against each others bodies' - a player has voluntarily quit after just one season in the nfl, forgoing millions of dollars

    and speaking of ohio -

    “There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood. The boy is walking through the street of his town. He is thinking of the future and of the figure he will cut in the world. Ambitions and regrets awake within him. Suddenly something happens; he stops under a tree and waits as for a voice calling his name. Ghosts of old things creep into his consciousness; the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life. From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy. With a little gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the winds, a thing destined like corn to wilt in the sun.”
    ― Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life








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  2. Drive safely. I remember that vid. Also remember the terrifying two semis story. How wonderful for Planet!!

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  3. Nah, I was just mourning the loss of GGtDM with a reference to what Chuck B used to say just before the commercial break. And while, sure, fine meta-stuffs abound, thishere is f'in' fine stuff whichever way it blows. Speakin' o' which, yinz have a wonderful trip!

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  4. Every time I take 68 instead of Pennsylvania Turnpike, as in a few hours ago, I think of those two semis.

    Yeah, it occurred to me somewhere between Cumberland and Morgantown that your were referring to Chuck, but since a couple of folks asked what the fuck happening here the past few days I thought I'd mention the wonders of non-compulsory link farming and aargh-baiting.

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