For keeping my body alive, nothing tops the 60th birthday gift of three bags of groceries left at my doorstep anonymously by MR and TC the evening of September 5. During September, I ate better than I have all year, and I won’t have to by Charmin until next July, thanks to their unsolicited and over-the-top kindness. As far as keeping my heart alive, I extpect nothing this year to approach the infusion of joy and affirmation I reaped at the Lincoln Home Visitor Center when I shared songs and poetry with a passing parade of smiling young people, parents and National Park Service employees.
It started with a phone call on the 19th from site administrator Kathy D, asking me if I would “perform” ont he 26th as I had at the Center in 2004. Of COURSE I would. I really like the venue (Theater #1, and the first time there was a delightful hoot, culminating in a terrific letter to the SJ-R editor by attendee and friend Joe Coffee, who has attended and liked what he encountered. They wtill talk about that letter at the Visitor Center.
She said she would bill me as a storyteller, and I agreed. I decided most of my poems and songs would tell stories. And besides, as I later confessed to the audiences, “If I has asked Kathy to call me a poet, you probably would not have come into this fine theater to share what I’m going to present to you.” Everyone chuckled, sharing the intended gentle humor.
I knew from the start, I would add a new Vachel Lindsay poem to my repertoire, a “story” entitled “The Potatoes Dance” which I had memorized probably two years ago but had not performed in public. Monday I printed a large-type list of what I would recite and sing. Included on the list were two titles I decided, later in the week, not to perform . “Puff the Magic Dragon” was replaced by “I’m Just a Damnyankee” (a modern ballad of the Civil War, better meshing with Abe’s age, and Vachel Lindsay’s “Simon Legree.” I love the poem. It’s one of about 20 I leep in the “back pocket of my mind,” ready to recite it to anyone at the drop of a hint. I concluded, however, it was too scary for the young trick or treat crowd which would occupy seats in T.#1. In its place were two other Vachel poems.: “On the Building of Springfield” made ths list because I knew most of the audience would be from Springfield, there is a line “We must have many Lincoln-hearted men…” and I believe in what the poem says, as relevantly to the collective consciousness of this town today as in 1908 when Vachel wrote it. I also knew it would probably be the only time 99% of the audience hears the poem recited in what I hope will be their long and happy lives. “The Sun Says,,,” is a short poem with a wonderful point.
You should memorize it; eight simple lines for goodness’ sake! So that would kill you already? Forgive me; I digressed.
Other Vachel poems selected included “When Gassy Thompson Struck it Rich,” What Mister Moon Said,” “The Little Turble,” and “Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight.” In addition to the Damnyankee song, I shared Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.” From my own pen I sang “Vachel Was Preacher,” and “Don’t You Take the Mashed Potatoes.” Friday afternoon, I made some crude drawings illustrating a potato with eyes, a coal bin and a “coal been” (you had to be there) and a dreadnought, to share before reciting “The Potatoes Dance,” and “Ave at Midnight.” I also demonstrated what a wood match stick is AND what a burned match stick is, depositing each burned match into a cup of water which I had brought for the occasion.
As people drifted in and out of the theater, I welcomed them, told them to come and go as they liked . . . . . and for about two and a half hours, I had the time of my life (with my socks on) as a delightful parade of witches, ghosts, pumpkins, puppy dogs, skeletons, fairies and other enchanting creatures and their parents came and went.
I could tell you more details, but you should know that there are some aspects to performing that warm performers and performers only. It’s the same kind of secret nuances airplane pilots experience, that only airplane pilots experience, and they won’t share those nuances with non-pilots because they are of another “world,” and non-pilots (performers) won’t understand, and that’s okay. It’s alomost like getting to know a lover so well, even if you have major arguments later and break up and go your separate ways, there are secrets you won’t share because they are yours and yours alone. I can tell you this: as Vachel noted in “Gassy Thompson,” it was “a sunflower time.”
The dinner after the event was as nice for different reasons. It was a pleasure to encounter the director of the Museum of Funneral Customes who had been giving “embalming demonstrations” elsewhere on the Lincoln Home grounds. It took all of ten seconds for us to start talking about arranging a future appearance and presentation by moi at his excellent museum in connection with a visit to the Lindsay family gravesite. Look for more about this event as we get it together, probably next spring. I also shared three Vachel poems at the table — no, I didn’t stand up; that would have been too silly, even for me — and in doing so, I believe I laid a foundation for future cooperative projects. Early into the dinner, I had engageed similarly but more briefly, the same with the director of The Academy ofLifelong Learning at Lincoln Land Community College. Who would have imagined that on the second floor of the Conference Center in the Lincoln Home Site, one would hear excerpts from Vachel’s “The Congo” recited as I stood bent over next to her and punched the words out, almost in a whisper, to a numbstruck table of innocent bystanders? I believe something will happen with the Academy.
I departed with one bowl of chilli in a styro bowl, several cookies wrapped in a large napkin and my sportcoat pockets full of Halloween candy. At home, I ate all the candy I wanted (I had “cherry picked” Resse’s Peanut Butter Cups, Almond Joys, Mounds, Hershey chocolate and Snickers) and iced tea and watached an incredible Bill Moyers’ Journal and McLaughlin group. Charlie Rose had movie people on, so I came into the office workshop and worked on model airplanes. Later, I returned to the living room, ate the saved bowl of chili, still sitting covered on the table.I realized that there wasn’t enough in the bowl to reheat later, so I should complete the perfect evening with the last of the chili. I did save some candy and cookies for later this weekend. Since all I have left in the kitchen is Ramen noodles and lunch meat, the sweets will be encore delicious.
As I hit the hay about 2:30 a, I reflected how the evening had come about as close to Christmas as I expect to get this year. There is a lot of unwelcome and unhappy circumstances ahead, to be shared in detail here as the month of November unfolds. But this day had been my Christmas, and having experienced it, my heart will be a little brighter in the weeks to come.
THANK YOU Lincoln Visitor Center, Kathy D. and the hundreds of visitors!
Live long . . . . . and proper!
Read Full Post »
