Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 20:45:29 -0500
Reply-To: Joel Walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Joel Walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject: Frydaye Phollees - Klassikal Po'try :
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yes, friends and neighbors, it's Frydaye once again.
and that means something ...i just can't recall what it was ...
anyway, here's some stuff dug up many years ago from an attic across
town by the water tank.
it seems that Willie "da Bard" Shakespeare was a vw bus nut, and even
wrote some pomes
about the subject. course, vw buses didn't look much the same back
then, and they were powered
by smallish poor (but strong!) folks hiding under the rear of the bus.
:)
don't belief it? check out All's Well That Ends Well, Act 4, Scene 4
Our wagon is prepared, and time revives us:
All's well that ends well; still the fine's the crown;
Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.
a bus-like sentiment if ever i heard one! :)
and Cymbeline, Act 5, Scene 5
And would so, had it been a carbuncle
Of Phoebus' wheel, and might so safely, had it
Been all the worth of's car.
now, i'm not quite so sure just who Phoebus was in this play, but
usually they were
referring to Apollo, who used to cruise up and down the california
coast highway
in his bright sun-yellow split-window bus. don't recall the carbuncle
on it, though ...
and in Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5
O, how the wheel becomes it!
(lots of you folks keep on and on and on about this very same
subject!!!). ;)
and even King Lear, Act 2, Scene 2, talks about the high costs of
alloy wheels:
Fortune, good night: smile once more: turn thy wheel!
and later in Act 2, Scene 4 ...
Let go thy hold when a great wheel
runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with
following it: but the great one that goes up the
hill, let him draw thee after.
or basically: it's dangerous to push buses DOWNhill ... you'll break
your neck.
they used to talk funny back in them days. probably had something to
do with
those strange clothes they wore.
and again in Act 4, Scene 7, where he talks about what happens if you
don't replace your fuel
lines in a timely manner (you've all seen those photos of buses
burning on the side of the road,
tires all aflame and metal melting off the bus) ...
but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like moulten lead.
and in Coriolanus, Act 1, Scene 6, we have a situation most familiar
to the old split-window hippie
generations, trying to avoid the fuzz/gestapo/police ...
Spies of the Volsces
Held me in chase, that I was forced to wheel
Three or four miles about, else had I, sir,
Half an hour since brought my report.
anyhoo, here's some offerings from the Bard hisself ...
Believe It ... or Don't Department
Willy "Bill the Bard" Shakesbeer drove a vw bus!
Sonnet xviii
Shall I compare thee to the summer's days?
Nah, for thou art too ugly and too fat;
No lines of grace nor speed thy form displays,
More like the Snail, with speed akin to that;
But when the showers of April are forgot,
And darling buds of May do grace the land,
Are thoughts of camping given rein to trot
Within the wintered hearts and minds of Man,
For it is then thy use belies thy form,
As caterpillar turns to butterfly,
From cargo's bus to camper's little dorm,
You turn whenever weekends happen by.
So long as campers camp, from sea to sea,
So lives a Bus, and those who camp with thee.
Sonnet xxix
When, in this race of Fortune and men's lies,
I often sit alone and contemplate ...
Where might I be, had I been much more wise
In choice of cars with which to link my fate?
What might I drive to work, to play, to cope
In rageous traffic, more than some can bear,
Were I to let someone decree my scope
In what to buy, to say, or clothes to wear?
How more in profit might my time be spent
Than nursemaid to some broken old auto?
A smile does ease my brow with troubles bent
As to the wheel I climb and off I go ...
And though my drives through rolling country end,
I love this bus, this one that makes me grin.
and just to prove that Shakespeare wasn't the only literary figure
that knew about buses and such ...
SONNET #43
From the Portuguese Man-of-War
By Lizzie Barrel Browning .50 cal.
How do I drive thee? Let me count the ways ...
I drive thee to the length and breadth and height
My bumpers reach, when feeling, out of sight,
For the ends of other Cars in parking space.
I drive thee by the headlights glowing trace
At Dawn, and Dusk, and yawning dead of Night.
I drive thee slowly, in the lanes upon the Right;
I drive thee quickly, when in Rushing Hour's Race.
I drive thee with a verve I seldom choose
In other cars, when out upon the Lanes;
But then a Calm descends upon my Brain,
And daily Woes and Worries oft I lose.
So, all in all, I drive thee with a Smile,
And shall but drive thee more, for years and miles.
SONNET #8,349.2 (Name Game)
Sonnets from the Manganese
by Lizzie Barrel Browning .50 cal.
How shall I call thee? What shall be thy Name?
The name of Roses matters not to those
Who smell the Flowers' sweet Perfume and close
Their eyes to fondly see a Face again.
Should Names reflect some Memories of Olde?
Or attributes of Strength, or Skill, or Dare?
Or should I give thee Ancient Names to bear,
Of People, Places, Things in Tales still told?
Or should a Name be new, and picked from Now?
A chosen Symbol of the Modern Times?
Somewhere, Someone, Something - a Name that rhymes
Our View of Life with all somehow.
But thou art naught but steel, glass and rubber ...
Eureka, that's it: thy Name is Bubba!!
:)
unca joel