Passing #200: Perks and Puppy Pants

Passing #200: Perks and Puppy Pants

To mark just passing the 200th article in The Magic Library Card! series, The Anonymous Poet insisted that I take the week mostly off and let him play his song. He chooses in his poetry, if such it is, to remind me of the other retreats from actual work that came our way periodically in corporate life before retirement. So, I have permissioned and commissioned him to do his thing. Think bucolic ridgetop retreat of an early spring day in a cozy and clapboard-sided private lodge for a dozen or so in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The lodge is mirrored in a placid, stream-fed lake rippled only by swans and occasional casts for corporate trout. A place to read, but cynically.

<indent>Perks and Puppy Pants (by The Anonymous Poet)</indent>

<indent><indent>The court convenes near a clear cool stream,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>In a grassy grove with end-of-winter cream;</indent></indent> <indent><indent>The trout grow old that no fisherman found,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>All remnants of a season backed to high ground.</indent></indent>

<indent><indent>Mountain maple and sugar, red and white oak,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>Shade a clapboard castle for royal folk,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>Where pastoral outdoors and a pretense for work</indent></indent> <indent><indent>Are a popular celebration of the ancient perk.</indent></indent>

<indent><indent>What do they do that they do only here?</indent></indent> <indent><indent>For some it is partly expensed cases of cheer;</indent></indent> <indent><indent>For another, the lady who comes to rendezvous,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>His marriage near wrecked by the previous few.</indent></indent>

<indent><indent>These to the king are court sycophants,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>With voices on beck in long puppy pants,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>For the master and king being dead to else all,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>Is never so deaf to a pusillanimous call.</indent></indent>

<indent><indent>And oblivious to this is the young castle cook</indent></indent> <indent><indent>Who reads to the trout in the neglected brook,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>Of the dynasty of Rome and Theodoric the Goth;</indent></indent> <indent><indent>What will happen to a society led by sloth.</indent></indent>

At the 100th, I wrote a serious critique about Truth in our times, in the context of Libraries of course. For today, I wish only to reflect and say that this column was meant to be about a variety of Library subjects, and it has, by addressing: (1) important current affairs in the Westmoreland Library Network infrastructure; (2) historical matters about Libraries (those of Jefferson and Franklin as examples); (3) different kinds of Libraries (public and corporate for example); (4) how Libraries in PA fit into the Department of Education functionally; (5) literature that might be of interest including books that describe different occupations for careers; and, yes, (6) poetry too. I have told you personal stories as well, all of the above with intent to say how professionally run Libraries and books make a vital difference in our lives, and they do.

It has been a fun journey for me, and hopefully for you too. So, hopefully, I’ll see you into the 300th.