Chartless

Chartless by Emily Dickinson

I never saw a moor,

I never saw the sea;

Yet now I know how the heather looks,

And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in Heaven;

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given

These were the words I spoke to my dog Max as we walked last night at about nine o’clock in the dark, rainy streets while he was looking for the perfect place to go! I have no idea when I fist heard these but it was in high school I guess, and have seldom used them since, but as he looked for his spot, this came out of my mouth and stopped me cold!

I was walking down a dimly lit, wet street quoting poetry to my dog in relationship to his bowel movements! School had some influence on me!

I have written before about the parts of my public education that were the most meaningful to me, and clearly these things are a personal matter, in that each person gathers from life the things we seem to want or need. For me it was art, music, shop and English literature.

I think the math I needed was learned by the sixth grade and the science was never really learned. My knowledge of geography is nil, and everything else seems dimly lit.

But, I can quote Emily Dickinson, and sing weird songs at the drop of a hat for no apparent reason like the Erie Canal Song:

I’ve got a mule,
Her name is Sal,

Fifteen years on the Erie Canal.

She's a good old worker

And a good old pal,

Fifteen years on the

Erie Canal.

We've hauled some barges in our day

Filled with lumber, coal and hay

And ev'ry inch of the way I know

From Albany to Buffalo.

Low Bridge, ev'rybody down,

For it's Low Bridge,

We're coming to a town!

You can always tell your neighbor,

You can always tell your pal,

If you've ever navigated

On the Erie Canal.

Low Bridge, ev'rybody down,

For it's Low Bridge,

We're coming to a town!

You can always tell your neighbor,

You can always tell your pal,

If you've ever navigated

On the Erie Canal.

We better get along

On our way, old gal,

Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.

Cause you bet your life

I'd never part with Sal,

Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.

Git up there, mule, here comes a lock,

We'll make Rome 'bout six o'clock.

One more trip and back we'll go

Right back home to Buffalo.

Low Bridge, ev'rybody down,

For it's Low Bridge,

We're coming to a town!

You can always tell your neighbor,

You can always tell your pal,

If you've ever navigated

On the Erie Canal.

Low Bridge, ev'rybody down,

For it's Low Bridge,

We're coming to a town!

You can always tell your neighbor,

You can always tell your pal,

If you've ever navigated

On the Erie Canal

I know this one is from high school music and there are others for sure.

Why do we remember such stuff?

On a white board in a studio in the Maryland Institute, College of Art, in 1959, it said in a childish scrawl, “Tintoretto is Queer!” Why do I remember that!

There are so many of these things in my head that make no sense, that I needed a blog just to get it all out! After more than 190 posts I surprise myself by the never ending story!

I know that Lisa, my secretary for a short while in Detroit, who was the straightest person in that school, loved the erotic novels of Ann Rice, writing under the name of A. N. Roquelaure. There are only three of them so I’m sure she read other stuff as well but I kept this factoid in my head.

After a dance at the high school, our English long term substitute, Doris Seipe, had her classes come back to her house and she served English muffin pizzas, the first time I ever tasted such an invention.

I can’t remember my date but I remember the pizza!

I can go on but I am rambling. The stories will never stop (I hope) but these are the kind of little details that are stuck in my head…