everything I got is done and pawned, everything I got , done and pawned
From the song Shake Sugaree by Elizabeth Cotten.
Have a little song Won’t take long Sing it right Once or twice Oh, lordy me Didn’t I shake sugaree? Everything I got is done and pawned Everything I got is done and pawned
Elizabeth Cotten was left handed.
She played the guitar upside down.
I am on vacation this weekend.
I live in Georgia so I can travel within my state and still go the the coast.
hopes, loves, hates all large, because nobody brings anything small into a bar
Watched the last half hour of Harvey last night.
The line “Their hopes and their regrets, their loves and their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar. And then – I introduce them to Harvey. And he’s bigger and grander than anything they offer me. And – and when they leave, they leave impressed. The same people seldom come back, but – that’s – that’s envy, my dear. There’s a little bit of envy in the best of us. That’s too bad. Isn’t it” has a bit of mournful grandeur does it not?
I was reminded of a time when I happened to watch Lost Horizons and Harvey back to back.
The stories of two men, Elwood P. Dowd and Robert Conway, who were looking for something more out of this life.
Two men who found a world of happiness.
Two men who found happiness in maybe make believe other worlds.
One man found such a place inside himself.
Inside his own mind.
He has this line; “Years ago, my mother used to say to me — she’d say, ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be –‘ She always called me Elwood. ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be oh, so smart or oh, so pleasant.’ Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. And you may quote me.”
As an aside, the word ‘pleasant’ is used 11 times in the movie.
How often does it turn up in my conversation?
The other man found another world.
Consider this exchange between Robert Conway’s brother George and Chang.
GEORGE We better make arrangements to get some porters immediately. Some means to get us back to civilization.
CHANG Are you so certain you are away from it?
GEORGE As far away as I ever want to be.
CHANG Oh, dear.
George wants to leave and does leave and brings Conway with him thought Conway says, “But I believe in this, and I’m not going to lose it.”
Two men who did find their place in the world but found a whole new world to make a place.
Who wouldn’t want that?
There is another common denominator between George Conway and Elwood P. Dowd.
I think the likelihood of college football is slipping away by the day. … It’s remarkable to think from holiday to holiday — Memorial Day to the Fourth of July — what has happened.
I would say on Memorial Day it was a slam dunk. It was going to happen. There could be some complications. As we hit the next big holiday of the year, which is the last holiday before Labor Day, it seems like everything has gone the wrong way.
And when I say that, it’s not even the complications within the sport, which are massive … It’s just the (COVID-19) spikes around the country are happening at probably the worst possible time to safely execute college football.
Almost all of the confidence has gone out the window. …
It could get better, but I don’t see how it can get better before the decisions have to be made.
So that’s why I think the positivity train — it has run out of gas.
You’re going to start hearing some stark reality now.
The article and comments were about College football.
I think you can apply those comments to everything everywhere at this time.
Almost all of the confidence has gone out the window.
So that’s why I think the positivity train — it has run out of gas.
You’re going to start hearing some stark reality now.
indifference in this, our democracy, is abdication
I was thinking about Harold Ross today.
Mr. Ross was the founder-editor of the New Yorker Magazine.
The magazine gave a home to so many American writers and was the focus of so many American dreams.
Neither here nor there but I remember a conversation with Gerald Elliott, then the retired Editor of the Grand Rapids Press and he told me that he missed the Sunday Magazine, Wonderland.
When I asked why, he replied that it was the one place where local authors had a chance to get published.
I didn’t tell him how many short stories I had submitted to Wonderland but I batted 1,000 on rejections.
Anyway, Mr. Ross started up the New Yorker with the announcement that the magazine would, “Not be edited for the little old lady from Peoria.”
Much much ink has been spilled try to explain just what Mr. Ross meant by that and I will not add to it.
I will mention that one of the funniest comments EVER about the New Yorker was an aside by James Thurber in a vignette about his mother. Mr. Thurber wrote that once his Mother told him that one of her friends in Columbus, OH, “took the New Yorker to help Jamie,” but never read it.
What stuck in my head was the thought, “what are the people in Peoria thinking right now?”
Through the magic of the World Wide Web I was soon reading the Peoria Journal Star.
It was written for the Peoria Journal Star (fabulous name by the way) by Judge Joe Billy McDade (another fabulous name by the way) a senior U.S. District Judge in the Central District of Illinois for the 4th of July.
Judge Joe Billy McDade at a naturalization ceremony, Nov 15 2019 – JOURNAL STAR
Judge McDade led off with the words, “The promise of America”
And went from there.
The Judge went on, “While the promise of America has flickered and faded in dark times, it has never been extinguished. That promise is the bedrock of American values and it should be the touchstone as we confront the challenges, new and old, that plague us.“
He concluded with:
We the People are sovereign;
We the People must safeguard our rights against encroachment.
It is upon all of us to do what we can to make the promise of America a reality. Doing nothing emboldens the wrongdoer, whatever the intent; indifference in a democracy is abdication.
These thoughts are only a starting point — I do not have all the answers.
But in the difficult conversations which are occurring and ought to continue, what I can offer is this: ever in the foreground, always in view, must be the fundamental idea of America, a nation where all and the rights of all are equal under the law.
By chance today I got a point of view from Peoria.
I have been feeling mostly rotten lately about our Country.
Knowing that Judge Joe Billy McDade is out there made me feel better.
One little light.
Maybe there are more.
There must be!
But even if Judge Joe Billy McDade is the ONLY one out there, I will not abdicate from my responsibilities as a citizen of the United States.
No Haiku For You 