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The Monday Morning Memo

Pearl Was a Bit of a Whore

October 31, 2011

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https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/4a175959-ed26-465a-a2ac-6d06562ef732/MMM111031-Pearl.mp3

Pearl was a bit of a whore.
We never kept her in a fence
So she had puppies at least once a year.

She was a good mother.

Abandoned in the country, starving,
We found her when I was in third grade.
She knew she was my dog immediately.

God help you if you got mad at me.

A blur of fur and teeth and little-dog roaring
Awaited you halfway to me. No one ever called
Pearl’s bluff because they knew she wasn’t bluffing.

I think I learned loyalty from Pearl.

Her oversized sense of protectiveness
Extended to the house a little, too.

But not much.

We lived on a small rise
At the end of a long driveway.

We would see her asleep on the porch in the sunshine
But when the crunch of tires on gravel reached her ears

She would leap like Wonder Woman off the porch
And race to the far end of the yard,
Barking the whole while,
Careful never to look our way.

She’d bark at the unseen burglar
Then cut and run a different way to
Stop and bark at other phantoms.

The shutting of a car door
Made her look our way, startled,
As if to say, “Oh, you’re back already?
When did you arrive?”

And then she would trot with great pride,
Paws lifted a little too high
Her head swinging back and forth
As if to say, “Aren’t I wonderful?”

“Pearl, you’re wonderful,” I would say
Because she knew her job and I knew mine.

In later years I stepped from the kitchen
Into the garage to see her curled
With a small cat under her foreleg,
It’s head snuggled beneath her chin, friends
Laid down for a nap.

The screen door springs closed with a clap
And Pearl lifts her bleary eyes, “What was that?”
She looks up to see me,
With a cat in her bed.

Standing slowly to her feet
Pearl gives a soft “woof,”
As if to whisper,
“The boss is here.”

The cat, knowing her job, too,
Stands,
Looks at me,
Looks at Pearl,
Then trots out the garage
And around the corner.

Pearl gives me one more look
Then chases the cat
To do her duty.

Later, I walk outside
And see Pearl beside the house
In the soft sunshine
Laid down for a nap
With her friend.

Forty years later
I walk around
another house
500 miles away,
And secretly hope to
See Pearl and the cat
One last time.


– Roy H. Williams

“Since Penelope Noakes of Duppas Hill is gone, there is no one who will ever call me Nellie again.” – An Old Lady in First and Last Things by Richard Hoggart, p. 234. [The original statement is attributed to W.H. Auden by poet Alfred Corn in his book, Autobiographies.]

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ONE MORE THING – If you’ve always planned on attending the Magical Worlds Communications Workshop, the days you’ve been waiting for are Dec. 6th-8th.  Believe it or not, rooms are still available in Engelbrect House. And that, mi amigo, is mucho rare.

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Random Quote:

“

I am not hungry at present. In fact, I shall never be hungry again.”
“You’re lucky,” I remarked.
“I am. I am the fortunate possessor of the knack of writing advertisements.”
“Indeed,” I said, feeling awkward, for I saw that I ought to be impressed.
“Ah!” he said, laughing outright. “You’re not impressed in the least, really. But I’ll ask you to consider what advertisements mean. First, they are the life-essence of every newspaper, every periodical, and every book.”
“Every book?”
“Practically, yes. Most books contain some latent support of a fashion in clothes or food or drink, or of some pleasant spot or phase of benevolence or vice, all of which form the interest of one or other of
the sections of society, which sections require publicity at all costs for their respective interests.”
    I was about to probe searchingly into so optimistic a view of modern authorship, but he stalled me off by proceeding rapidly with his discourse.
“Apart, however, from the less obvious modes of advertising, you’ll agree that this is the age of all ages for the man who can write puffs. ‘Good wine needs no bush’ has become a trade paradox, ‘Judge by appearances,’ a commercial platitude. The man who is ambitious and industrious turns his trick of writing into purely literary channels, and becomes a novelist. The man who is not ambitious and not industrious, and who does not relish the prospect of becoming a loafer in Strand wine-shops, writes advertisements. The gold-bearing area is always growing. It’s a Tom Tiddler’s ground. It is simply a question of picking up the gold and silver. The industrious man picks up as much as he wants. Personally, I am easily content. An occasional nugget satisfies me. Here’s tonight’s nugget, for instance.”
I took the paper he handed to me. It bore the words:CAUGHT IN THE ACTCAUGHT IN THE ACT of drinking Skeffington’s Sloe Gin, a man will always present a happy and smiling appearance. Skeffington’s Sloe Gin adds a crowning pleasure to prosperity, and is a consolation in adversity. Of all Grocers.

“Skeffington’s,” he said, “pay me well. I’m worth money to them, and they know it. At present they are giving me a retainer to keep my work exclusively for them. The stuff they have put on the market is neither better nor worse than the average sloe gin. But my advertisements have given it a tremendous vogue. It is the only brand that grocers stock.

    Since I made the firm issue a weekly paper called _Skeffington’s Poultry Farmer_, free to all country customers, the consumption of sloe gin has been enormous among agriculturists. My idea, too, of supplying suburban buyers gratis with a small drawing-book, skeleton illustrations, and four coloured chalks, has made the drink popular with children.
    You must have seen the poster I designed. There’s a reduced copy behind you. The father of a family is unwrapping a bottle of Skeffington’s Sloe Gin. His little ones crowd round him, laughing and clapping their hands. The man’s wife is seen peeping roguishly in through the door. Beneath is the popular catch-phrase, “Ain’t mother going to ’ave none?”
“You’re a genius,” I cried.

“

- P.G. Wodehouse, Not George Washington (1907) ch. 4

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