[email protected] wrote: > In a message dated 11/25/98 4:48:00 PM Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] > writes: > > << HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL......WHAT A BLESSING TO > LIVE IN THIS WONDERFUL COUNTRY. >> > > Well said, > > And God Bless America. > > Amen. > > Bob O'Neal I have to agree. There's no place like home! I believe I've fallen in with a bunch of romantics! Well, make room for yet another. Thank you Jill!!! As a Hoosier, I enjoy a special literary background. They told a story about a speaker in Indiana who asked all the other authors in the audience to stand. Everybody stood! Looking again, he spied one elderly gentleman still sitting. Addressing that man, he said, "Are you the only one in this audience who has not been published?" The fellow next to him explained "Oh he's an author too! He's just deaf!" When I was new to the net, I ventured to share a bit of poetry with this list. I had no idea that this was a no no. All were tolerant. No one complained, (at least, to me.) As thanksgiving has arrived, I feel again the need to share a bit. You must realize that for me, this is a part of the genealogy picture. My Auntie Mayme made her living reciting poetry in the public schools. Since a large contingent of O'Nealls lived in IN, this was a part of their experience. In this bit, the celebration of an agrarian culture is not so distant from all our ancestor's experiences. It will be familiar to many. If it annoys you please complain to me, (off list,) that I may not err yet again. and delete! BTW, Auntie Mayme sat in the poet's lap as a baby! WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN By James Whitcomb Riley When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock, And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock, And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence; O, it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best, With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest, As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here-- Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees; But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock-- When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. The husky rusty russel of the tossels of the corn, And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn; The stubble in the furries--kindo' lonesome-like, but still A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill; The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed; The hosses in theyr stalls below--the clover overhead!-- O' it sets my hart a clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps; And your cider makin's over, and your wimmernfolks is through With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! I don't know how to tell it--but if sich a thing could be As the angels wantin' boardin' and they'd call around on me-- I'd want to 'commodate 'em--all the whole endurin' flock-- When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock! May God make us ever mindful of our manifest blessings. Happy Thanksgiving Day! Carl