Shelley and Byron will be on their way begging for my postal code
For everyone whom I may have scarred with the last installment of Bradford pears, please enjoy some flowering trees from this evening's walk that can be safely, for individual values of pollen, inhaled.
The lilacs are emerging at the top of our street.
I wished these tulips well in their quest to be birds of paradise.
A raft of dogwood holding up the sky.
I miss the brick of our old neighborhood, so I like the one outcropping we have here.
This dogwood cut so beautifully across its house.
This one formed a screen.
Elegantly insectile.
I also miss the poppies of our old neighborhood, so this tulip doing its best impression pleased me.
Haven't a clue what this stuff is except brilliantly colored.
The ornamental cherry went full Maxfield Parrish in the sunset.
I got sick of pastorals.
Thanks to a stray line that got it stuck in my head last night, I became weirdly obsessed with trying to figure out my family's chain of transmission for the folk song variously known as "Army Life" or "Gee, Ma, I Want to Go Home." My grandfather famously got nowhere near the armed forces in World War II on account of being what![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
selkie once succinctly described as blind as half a bat. (He worked the duration of the war in the mill room of the California Ink Company and I wrote a poem about it.) I know it got out into the wild and was recorded by Lead Belly and Pete Seeger and even musicians I didn't grow up listening to, I've just never heard one of those versions that sounded like a direct vector for the three verses I learned from my grandparents in the 1980's. Based on available snippets, it's looking oddly as though the closest thing might be the version incorporated into Moss Hart's Winged Victory (1943). I have ordered the playscript through the library and wish I could find an original cast recording. I am unfamiliar with the 1944 film beyond the fact that it preserved most of the original stage cast who also toured nationally. Or maybe there's just a popular recording I haven't heard. I learned Irving Berlin's "Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" from these same grandparents and no one had to go through World War I for it.
The lilacs are emerging at the top of our street.
I wished these tulips well in their quest to be birds of paradise.
A raft of dogwood holding up the sky.
I miss the brick of our old neighborhood, so I like the one outcropping we have here.
This dogwood cut so beautifully across its house.
This one formed a screen.
Elegantly insectile.
I also miss the poppies of our old neighborhood, so this tulip doing its best impression pleased me.
Haven't a clue what this stuff is except brilliantly colored.
The ornamental cherry went full Maxfield Parrish in the sunset.
I got sick of pastorals.
Thanks to a stray line that got it stuck in my head last night, I became weirdly obsessed with trying to figure out my family's chain of transmission for the folk song variously known as "Army Life" or "Gee, Ma, I Want to Go Home." My grandfather famously got nowhere near the armed forces in World War II on account of being what
selkie once succinctly described as blind as half a bat. (He worked the duration of the war in the mill room of the California Ink Company and I wrote a poem about it.) I know it got out into the wild and was recorded by Lead Belly and Pete Seeger and even musicians I didn't grow up listening to, I've just never heard one of those versions that sounded like a direct vector for the three verses I learned from my grandparents in the 1980's. Based on available snippets, it's looking oddly as though the closest thing might be the version incorporated into Moss Hart's Winged Victory (1943). I have ordered the playscript through the library and wish I could find an original cast recording. I am unfamiliar with the 1944 film beyond the fact that it preserved most of the original stage cast who also toured nationally. Or maybe there's just a popular recording I haven't heard. I learned Irving Berlin's "Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" from these same grandparents and no one had to go through World War I for it.
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The clothes in the army they say are mighty fine, Me and my buddy can both get into mine, I don't want no more of army life, Gee, but I wanna go, Gosh, but I wanna go, Gee, but I wanna go home.
The biscuits in the army they say are mighty fine, One rolled off the table and killed a pal of mine...
Dang it, I am sure there were one or two more that I can't recall at the moment.
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My grandparents sang:
"The coffee in this army, they say it's mighty fine
It's good for cuts and bruises and it tastes like iodine
Oh, I don't want no more this army life
Gee, Ma, I want to go home
"The biscuits in this army, they say they're mighty fine
One rolled off the table and killed a friend of mine
Oh, etc.
"The chicken in this army, they say it's mighty fine
One jumped off the table and started marking time
Oh, I don't want no more this army life
Gee, Ma, I want to go
But they won't let me go
Gee, Ma, I want to go home!"
They didn't sing the verse about the clothes, but I've seen it in collections! Also one which is clearly inapplicable outside of military settings, but which I find very funny: "The furloughs in the Army they say are mighty fine / They put it down on paper, but where the hell is mine?"
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I think that started as Betty Grable.