This was the front of "the Manor" eight days ago.
This is the scene this morning.The well-flowered shrubberies of last week are the poorly tended bushes of this morning. Got me in that "Circle of Life" mood: Good, bad, inevitable, evanescent. Which got me thinking about Ponyboy, Sodapop, and "Two-bit" Mathews (no relation). What do you mean, "What the heck are you talking about?". Surely you read S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders" in junior high/middle school? Oh, come on, I know there are more than that. Hold on, I know I got a copy of it somewhere. I'm going the kids' room. Don't go anywhere; I'll be right back.
Let's see... S.E. Hinton's "The Taming of Star Runner", S.E. Hinton's "That was Then, This is Now", St. Augustine's "City of God", Suess's "There's a Wocket in My Pocket" (apparently Dr. Suess really enjoyed his work). Hmmm. In any event, "The Outsiders" was about underpriviledged teens and preteens struggling in tough places and tough times. Soda and Ponyboy and the rest of 'em. One of the characters liked Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay". The poem puzzled him, and described him, them, us, nature. The poem, in case you have misplaced your copy:Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Stay Gold, Ponyboy.
13 comments:
Do it for Johnny!
Were you a Soc or a what were the others, greesers?
I was never a Soc, but I was a slick once, glad it never came down to fisticuffs with those Creekers, but, like Gator, we coulda beat 'em in a street fight!
Mags, you're so there. So, which school made you read it?
Yeah, we were slicks, but not socs. They mighta been able to scrap, but we could scrap just a little bit better.
I'm the only person I know who consistently ends emails and letters with "Stay gold."
Nobody ever gets me.
Until now.
What a relief.
the minute I stop complaining about teh cold is the day I start complaining about teh mowing.
I've railed against authority forever. Teachers are authority, but a few good ones- the ones with the gleam in their eye; the ones that wanted to uplift, rather than kill, our spirits- introduced me to "The Outsiders" and Poe, and Graham Greene. You must've had a teacher like that, Kate. I'm also betting that you are a teacher like that.
Circle of suburban life, John.
I think I was forced to read it in 8th grade.
G. Greene: The Third Man is one of my top five fav films.
I guess you don't have the same affection for it that Kate and I do, Mags. I know you're a film expert, and I know G. Greene did some work in films, but didja ever read any of his novels? "The Power and the Glory" is my fav. Good story about a "Whiskey Priest" in post-revolution Mexico. Almost turned me Catholic. I also liked "The Silent American", a very prescient look at early American involvement in Viet Nam. That one was made into a movie a few years ago. Michael Caine played the jaded British journalist.
Ooh, poetry ... "Here I sit, broken hearted ... "
Hey, ever wonder why they called him "Pony Boy" ... Well, it all started after gym class in the shower, and ...
Dickens changed my life. Hated him in high school but fell in love with him in college. Talk about a stressful semester. Took a grad course in Dickens; we had to read a novel of his and three articles of criticism on that novel a week. Most of his novels average 900 pages.
I miss that class!
(BTW, I'm a Brit lit person)
I like some Brit-lit, but more twentieth century stuff, like C.S. Lewis, and of course, the classics, like "Beans, Beans, they're good for the heart...". See, Chase, the classics never go out of style.
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