Run in a mad fit

by

Charles N. Guthrie

Running so hard to get to the tape;

Breaking hearts right and left

to get first place;

Waiting for the applause and shouts to burst;

But, now it’s just a finish line

where no crowd shouts my name.

It would come in time,

the race to win no longer mine;

The race changed from how fast to what;

What can be done in the time that’s left?

Hold on to some lines from favorite songs;

Eat the air in your lungs.

In a mad fit

run past the empty bleachers in the night

as if the shouting crowd never left.

Copyright  ©  2009, Charles N. Guthrie

When you become a man or woman the race changes to getting things done by arbitrary deadlines.  As you become even older you hope to accomplish your life goals which are restrained by time, and sometimes, not all the time, it’s ok to run toward an invisible tape, a tape the younger adults don’t see, and run at the tape like you are crazy.

I like to listen to Jay Leno’s monologue

and write my poems as the show goes along.

So, I sat at my kitchen table about to write;

when I noticed I was wearing only one sock.

Now, every poet knows about the one sock curse;

because wearing one sock makes you lose your words.

Why, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet on a bet

he couldn’t write while wearing only one sock.

Since then those who’ve  worn one sock and wrote

have all experienced the loss of thought.

Even Shakespear could only do it once.

So, while Jay was in the middle of his joke,

I looked for my missing sock and laughed.

I laughed so hard I got a headache.

So, I got up to take an Excedrin break,

With one great gulp I swallowed a tablet;

then, at the punch line of Jay’s joke I laughed;

looked for my sock, and let the Exedrin work.

All of a sudden my sink let out some burps;

Oh my gosh!  I was getting the one sock curse.

Out of my head flew all of my thoughts;

then they dove into my sink and down it’s pipes

gurgling so loud I couldn’t think.

They were so noisy I missed Jay’s next joke,

only hearing the laughter after he spoke.

It was a scary moment

standing on the kitchen floor with one bare foot

and my other foot in a sock,

and inside my head not a single thought.

Suddenly, I realized my headache was gone;

from lack of ideas, or the Excedrin.

Jay Leno’s monologue was funny that night.

Giving me a fit of laughter to such an extent

I couldn’t control my poetic wit.

Jay’s jokes made me forget I couldn’t write

So, I grabbed my pen, but my hand froze tight.

In my very own kitchen I’d become lost

with nothing in my head to write about.

Jay’s jokes were so funny my sink pipe laughed,

then gave a burp and my ideas popped back.

They were slippery as fish in a wet grocery sack.

I tried to catch my ideas by writing them down

in a one sock poem so I could wear a crown.

So, I wrote my thoughts as fast as I could;

but, never realized I’d written good.

I had not set out to break the curse.

All I wanted was to laugh at Jay’s jokes;

get rid of my headache and entertain some folks.

Now I wear one sock and write all the time;

because I’ve discovered the secret of the one sock rhyme.

Anyone can write wearing only one sock;

but, with Jay Leno’s jokes you get the best result.

                           By

Charles N. Guthrie

    Copyright    ©    Charles N. Guthrie   2009

Jack,  Johnny,  &  Jay

(The three wise men of late night TV)

The Tonight Show has been part of our culture starting with, Jack Parr, Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno and now, Conan O’brien.  Why has the show been around so long, what value has it, and where is it going? 

The reason the show has lasted as long as it has is the monologue.  Other than the monologue, the Tonight Show is little more than a variety show.  Of course, the delivery of the monologue is the key and NBC has always been able to find a star who could deliver.   Over the years, the monologue became if you will a final prayer of the day, but in a funny spoofing way, taking on the serious, powerful and the great in a whimsical and serious manner.  Humor’s base is morality and right over wrong.  The Tonight Show monologue at one time or another has taken on both sides of the political spectrum.  The rich are poked fun at.  The powerful are laughed at.   Most of us feel better that we are not rich, powerful or important because the monologue takes everyone and thing down to size.

It was as if he were in your livingroom when Jack Parr told a story.  When Johnny Carson came along, some thought he was silly and not up to the intellectual humor of Parr, but then Johnny Carson changed, he grew.  I didn’t think anyone could replace Johnny when he left, then I watched Jay Leno get better and deeper and again we had the feeling after watching the Tonight Show all was right with the world.

The hosts of the Tonight show, Jack, Johnny, and Jay, became more than late night comedians, or hosts, but in a way a moral compass for our times expressing after the nightly news the views of the regular guy about what was going on in the world.  In a sense a humorous morality for the nation.  

So the Tonight show hosts made us feel good about ourselves and made us look forward.  How much has that been worth over the years?  How many times did that laughter save lives, allow the down hearted to prevail over bad times.  There is no price tag one can put on the effect of entertainment.   The Tonight Show was a very valuable tool for keeping peace and harmony in our nation.   

Now, we have Conan O’brien, and the same things are being said of him as those who came before.  He is too superficial and his jokes are too silly.  But, maybe like the others he will grow into the role.  I hope so.  On the other hand we have David Letterman.  His humor has always been simple and he gives the appearance of being partisan.  

 The Tonight Shows were  enjoyable, but more, they gave us security.  Someone we knew personally was looking at the big issues pointing out the obvious which is always funny.  Sometimes the humor was tough, like in the Cold War years with the Cuban Missels, Viet Nam, Nixon, Clinton, we all sat in our livingroom foxholes and shared the humor with Jack, Johnny, and Jay.  In a sense, Jack, Johnny, and Jay were the three wise men that followed that star in the sky, but instead of galloping away on their camels, got off and spent some time with us.  It could be, the last one is getting back on his Camel.  We were lucky to spend time with these truly wise men.    

Who knows what the future will bring.  It may be the end of an era.  Maybe there will be a fourth wise man.  Good luck to Conan.  Good luck to Dave too.   I’ll give both of you some advice later.  Here is my advice to NBC.  Place Jay Leno right after the 6:00 O’clock news, with his monologue and some guests, for no longer than 30 minutes, every night Monday through Friday.  A monologue and one or two guests.   In the end his humor is all about the news and pointing out the obvious which is, after all funny.

For Conan O’brien, I have two words, Will Rogers.   

For David Letterman, well, here I am, writing a poem about someone in a kitchen

with one sock on and one sock off and a kitchen sink burping.  Now that is about as silly and superficial as you can get.  Then criticize Conan and David for being shallow; but, none-the-less, you’ve got to know shallow to recognize shallow.  For Letterman, and O’brien they are either going to upgrade their humor, or they will be like all the other comics and there wont be a reason for people to tune in.

I have no advice for Jay.

I sat myself before her like the empty coffee cup arrives.
The menu of my life I offered to her eyes.
The waiter stood at the ready and the cook was in the kitchen.
I waited for her order with great expectation.

“Waiter,” she paused,
as she opened her hand exposing her claws
and ring finger without a band, voicing her aristocratic airs,
about liberal ethics and conservative affairs
that fell below her high flying philosophies; 
then she purred beneath her breath,
as I tried not to look perplexed,
“I’d like tea from a kettle of stars,” she ordered.
My eyes looked at the menu stunned.
“I’d like my sunsets in a glass.
Bring my afternoons roasted and the chilliness
of evenings warmed in two pots.
Beneath my bedroom blankets spread my legs
and wind them up so tight I’ll spin into the Milky Way
where I’ll fall asleep then wake
from a thousand Christmas Eves of joy
with my eyes spinning like a child’s upon a toy.”

I thought she’d want a little house with a piano
and a dog, a picket fence or romantic place to go.
But putting sunsets in a glass,  .  .  .
 
My little restaurant that I’d created in my mind
didn’t have two pots of chilly evenings warmed,
or roasted afternoons, or Milky Ways
into which I might spin her legs into Christmas Eves
and all of those other things ordered up from her dreams.
I knew she was just speaking in metaphors;
but also what her words were intended for.
Those things she wanted ordered up
were not on any  menu I could concoct.
She was gracious and settled for what I could afford
one tea bag, and two empty cups, each with a saucer
two metal spoons a pot of hot water and some sugar.
Lest my romantic notions be revealed and spilled
on the restaurant floor and the night ruined,
I carried my heart away,
like an empty cup upon a waiter’s tray.
‘Twas a quaint restaurant in my mind
invented to ask her to live her life with mine.
I wondered if one day, I might be there to ask,
if she’d found the restaurant she’d sought;
or ask if she’d been to the Milky Way and back. 
Careful words were turned
at the handle of our conversation’s end.
I walked down that imaginary sewer pipe that crops up,
when one’s romantic notions are perceived down struck.
Walked out of her life, down the sewer pipe and under ground,
walking into bigger and bigger sewer pipes beneath the town.
I began to mix with the other turds who’d lost their way that night.
We were all on our merry way to the sewage treatment plant.
There was laughter and music in the sewer pipes.
Other, wiser turds than me were making jokes
about what we were going to do when we awoke.
 
The sewage waters moved swiftly and sparkled that night
as if a kettle of stars had been poured into the drain pipes.
Alas, her big words and cosmic dreams snuffed out my hopes.
The engagement diamond in my mind’s box
was watery thin on the restaurant floor waiting for the mops.

Copyright © 2009, Charles N. Guthrie
California 1974

My romantic notions were out gunned over tea by a good looking woman’s big words and incredibly ambitious statements; so I went home and wrote a poor little me  rhyme.  I was going to law school at the time this poem was written and I was starving. The problem when your poor and proud is that your state of being, being poor and proud, influences how you perceive others.  This woman I wrote so unkindly about, she did agree to have tea with me.  She was intelligent, had great wit and outrageous dreams and I completely misunderstood her.  I thought she was kissing me off, when in fact she was telling me how wonderful life would/ could be.  She was sharing her dreams.  But, I was so damned poor, I would not allow myself to dream so bold or embrace her dreams.  If I had to go back and do it all over again there would be a whole bunch of times I would not let being proud color my thinking of people who were being kind and genuine.  If I ever made that apology, I would for the occasion have to rent a football bleacher.

As it turned out, I was indeed around to ask if she found that restaurant she was looking for.  I didn’t have to ask because I knew, knew she made her way into the Milky Way, knew her afternoons were warm and am aware of her great success.  I add, great success without me.   The poem is about writing a poem and not understanding what was written until reading the rhyme years later.  Oh, I’m sure she thought I was dull, but I doubt she went home and wrote a rhyme about my dullness, to her even greater credit.  Wouldn’t it be funny if she had, had gone home and written a rhyme about my dullness, of course I’ll never find out because I’m too proud to ask.    Actually, I’m not too proud to ask, but there are some things you leave alone.

Sewer language is not where I like to go with my poems; but, it is guy talk after some perceived rejection.  Who knows, maybe somewhere in the minds of all guys there is an imaginary sewer pipe to crawl into after striking out with a gal.

 (New Concord, Ohio, 1959)

Legend says, if you kill a firefly the dying glow
creates a window for an evil thing to look at you.
Blind to the human heart, evil cannot hear its beat;
except through the glow of dying firefly light.

Once upon a time two poor lovers walked
among fireflies in the night.
They were afraid and running from their past.
Too poor to buy wedding rings,
her coin-less pockets and his dusty suit;
They dreamed of greater things
than walking in the night.
Within the cathedral of the heavens
they caught their breath and prayed for castles
in the sky, and in desperation caught
a firefly and rubbed its yellow tail light
into a wedding ring around her finger.
Rubbed it into a yellow-ember
that pulsated on her finger.
They walked together in the night
her finger pulsating a yellow-green.
Two lovers part of the night’s scene
among a million golden lights
rising and falling like
sparkling waves in a flashing sea.
They walked toward a starry castle in the sky.
Their hearts began to beat and sigh.
The earth was light beneath their feet.
They began to float upward in the air
between the ice cold  moon and stars
above the golden flashing blanket
that spread like a quilt over the planet.
The evil thing awoke and opened its eye to hear
a curious note that throbbed from her finger.
It watched the dancing lovers
twirl and spin toward the stars.
Through the glow of her ring that throbbed
the evil thing could see her heart and blood.
She tried to hide her hand in her dress,
but the ember’s light came through the cloth.
Then she covered her pocket with her lover’s hand
and they fell from heaven to their end.

Copyright 2009 ©   By Charles N. Guthrie

New Concord, Ohio, 1959

This was written when I was 16, the year, 1959, after moving from a farming town in Ohio, to one of the richest, most beautiful coastal towns in Southern California.  The little town I left, New Concord, Ohio, was more beautiful one spring night than anything seen before or since.  One moon-lit night, about roof-top high the fireflies appeared over the country hills like a soft,  blinking golden blanket.  Surrounded by fireflies, I climbed a ladder to the top of our house and stood on the roof  to see how far they stretched to find they stretched forever.  An enormous flashing sea rose and fell softly in sparkling waves all around for miles in every direction.  The top of my house became a ship in a flashing ocean.  The fireflies seemed to rise and fall like waves but never really going higher than our roof.  The fireflies were like a moving blanket over the earth in all directions.  All around our house for miles hovering over the land were golden lights.  The sky above the sparkling golden blanket was as black as coal with a full white moon and billions of white stars.  I watched the sky and ocean of golden flashing lights for hours.  After all these years I remember what I was thinking while looking at the billions of white stars and sea of fireflies; I was thinking no where in the universe or under the sea could I go and find anything to rival the beauty of what I was beholding that night in New Concord, Ohio.

When I wrote The Firefly’s Ring, I was thinking about that night in New Concord.  It was a teenage effort so obviously the poem ended tragically.  When you’re young you write about death.  When you are old, death is still there, but you write around it.  No judgment call, only an observation.  The poem’s had some minor edits over the years.  But for a few words and grammar edits it remains as first written.         

New Concord, Ohio is more than a farming town.  New Concord is where Senator and Astronaut John Glenn grew up, and it is the home of Muskingum College.  It is also the home of New Concord High School, where, at least when I attended, Latin and boxing were mandatory. Both were great gifts, the Latin and the boxing; which I didn’t appreciate until years later in law school, and when the chips were down.  New Concord has character.  I hope some rubbed off on me even though my stay was but for a year.  I remember getting up at five a.m., to deliver news papers and my father driving me around on the snowy streets running to houses and delivering papers.  As an old guy, I’ve made an old guy effort, and still can’t quite capture that night with the fireflies in New Concord.  Let me say it this way:  I’m a guy who does not go around talking about how beautiful things are.  The fireflies that night in New Concord were my flying saucer.

Shall we be cogs for purposes beyond our comprehension;
gods in a battle for their resurrection from oblivion;
or a bunch of dreaming clowns in a world of illusion?

Copyright © 2009, Charles N. Guthrie

The Purpose of Life and “jotters”
Wrote this in my late 20s, attending San Diego State
College, the greatest college in the world. No, I mean it. It’s
the greatest college in the world. Pulled over to the side of a
freeway (a somewhat dangerous jot down) and tossed it in
the box. (That box that all poets keep)

There are lots of us, “jotters,” I call them, people who
jot down their thoughts here and there before they forget
their thoughts. They are not necessarily writers. They could
be barbers, scientists, dish washers, or even students. You
see someone writing up against a building or atop a trash can
and you leave them alone. But you think, “Yeah, there is
somebody like me, a jotter.”

I wonder if John Keats was a “jotter,” or Emily. I
know Emily tossed a lot of lines into that chest she kept
under her bed. I call her by her first name because I feel
close to her. I keep a book of her poems beside my bed.

Maybe people I see writing things down are making
out grocery lists, or laundry lists and not writing poetry at all.
Well, you don’t know unless you ask, and it’s not the type of
thing into which one intrudes unless one knows the person.

There could have been a great battle/ or unforeseen
cataclysm in which intelligent life lost/ was dethroned by
indifference and all but the seeds of life were in an explosion
microscopically spattered all over the universe.

We could be insignificant stair steps on which the
gods will step to get to where ever gods travel. We could be
the last seed of the gods trying to put a once great intelligent
heaven back together. Or, what the heck, we could just be a
bunch of monkeys cackling in the trees about illusions and
dreams, writing our thoughts on little sheets of papers with
little notes and then tossing them into a box.

Oh, Jewish girls, Oh, Jewish girls, I love them;
but I’ll never get to heaven for what they’ve done.
Oh, Jewish girls, Oh, Jewish girls, I love them;
but I’ll never get to heaven for what they’ve done.

You see my heart strings are playing music for the devil;
my strings are on the devil’s fiddle he plays in hell.
The devil plays tortured music for the sinners on his fiddle
as they dance amongst’ the fires, the screams and yells.

Jewish girls anaesthetize the goy boys with their kiss
then pull the goy boy’s heart strings from their chests.
They deposit the strings in a New York Bank account
then sell them to the red horned devil at a discount.

When the goy boy gets up his chest feels empty.
He doesn’t know his heart strings are in hell.
He hears a strange music that sounds familiar
that comes from underneath the floor.

Read the entire poem

As we whisked him off to jail,
I looked through the rear view mirror,
while my partner told him he was evil.

“It’s liquor!
That turns you into a devil!”

She teased him,… and gave me a smile.
But, I told her,

“Your just going to get him riled.”

Then he shouted and ranted with rage,
while his eyes bulged with a glaze.

“You think you’re gods,
“But, without bullets you’re duds.”

He would talk, then he would babble,
but all the while he cursed and spit
at the back of my partners seat.

Happy tourists in the Grant Hotel
unaware of the commotion in our car
looked over their finger bowls
and through the windows at our moving blur.
On Broadway’s wet dark streets
the steam shot through each manhole cover
with a hiss then hung in pockets.

Again, the drunk began to rant and rave,

“You think you are gods,” he exclaimed,
“But, where are your followers?
….. Where are your disciples?
Without guns and bullets you are worthless.
Your disciples sleep in your revolver chamber.
They worship you in closed eyed prayer.”

The old drunk’s words were full of crazy logic
but they were also idiotic –

In his babble they just popped out
like a sudden picture out of TV static.
He continued on the same theme.

“A circumstance inside your mortal eye,
will select their beginning and their end,
Let them out to crash fast upon life’s rode
and die, never to know who or what they are.”

The old drunk was on his way to jail.
His voice was full of alcohol and ale.
So when he talked about god and bullets
I didn’t give a piss.
As we splashed through the ghost clouds on patrol,
I chewed the old drunk’s words inside my soul.
Sometimes, I thought,
my job was like driving heaven’s bullet
through the lowest clouds on earth.
Perhaps the words were an omen in the night
of unthinkable things to come about.
But the thought was forgotten.
There were arrest reports to be written.
The drunk was booked and jail door slammed shut.
Once again, our patrol car had an empty stomach.
We drove to “Johnny’s” Restaurant”.
I began to write the old man’s arrest report.
Our ears were tuned to Station “A”
while we sipped our coffee and wrote our 153.
When the dead air broke alive
we listened to its cracks and sighs.
Then my partner and I raised our eyes
when our squad car was assigned,

“…. a man under a house with
a Bible and a gun!”

At the destination we arrived and found a prowler
who’d climbed beneath a woman’s floor.
She heard noises in the night.
She drew her skirt about her waist so tight.
Her teary face was quite distraught.
She claimed there is a prowler beneath her
wooden floor– She could hear him making prayer.
He was seen by a neighbor,
with a Bible, and a gun!

 Should we try to coax him out,
or just leave him alone?
Upon our stomachs we begin to crawl
through a hole in the cellar wall.
We break cobwebs,
….. chase spiders
through the underbelly of the house
and make our way to where,…
A face looks back with beads of sweat
that sparkle in the dark and dust;
in a dim glow of flash light
he clutches his Bible and trigger tight
to ask,

“From where have you come?”
“From above the wooden ceiling.”

We reply.

He whispers to us, 

“God does not hear my prayers.
I pray soft to the god above.
I hear steps of thunder
above my head and shoulder.
My prayers do not go through the wooden floor.
I think I should pray louder!
I should shoot my gun through the wooden
ceiling to get god’s attention.
But, I just mostly listen”

We whisper back at him,

“We have come from above the wooden ceiling
The god that lives up there
doesn’t want you under her floor.”

He gives us a strange look and whispers back,

“God doesn’t want my prayer.
Doesn’t want me here anymore.
Doesn’t want my prayers beneath this floor.”

We tell him,

“Your praying makes god nervous,”

His head shakes.
He looks at his gun and then back at us.

“God doesn’t want you to fire your gun
into the wooden sky.
You have gotten god’s attention.
God wants you to go away–
or you could die!”

Suddenly above the floor
foot steps came near.
They gave the man a start
and he dropped his gun in the dirt.
Then grabbed,… at his gun in the dim light
while the shadows went breaking and jumping in the dark
as if to point the gun at us–
or just to pick the gun up from the dust!

In a fraction of an instant
Six hard faced sailors were let loose.
Lightening struck beneath the house.
Gone, all gone their lives spent
so quick and fast.
Only for a moment their lives last.
Beneath the house a man lay dead.
From beneath the wooden floor we retired.
Shaking we walked up to the lady’s door
and simply said,

“He will not bother you anymore.”

Now I sit silent and await the Coroner.
My partner empties shells from our guns
and replaces each spent cartridge
with a fresh unspent bullet that
…. sits ready to explode!
Empty cartridges are tossed into a poke.

There is an emptiness in and out.
We need to be told we were right.
Yet, we wait, listen to dead air static and think.
Could we be the ammunition in a target practice
for the gods in preparation for some cataclysmic fracas?

Or, perhaps something less.
Helpless bullets in the rifle of a drunk and reckless god
who, swaggers in his backyard
and shoots at the stars and moon
…. beyond his comprehension!

Listen to Station “A”
slowly winding out her song
She is picking and choosing partners in the sky
and winding hearts and muscle into destiny.
She deals a hand of cards to each,
a game of poker in the night;
where the ante is a patrolman’s fate
and winning hand a life.

Station “A” draw tight
your strings about my partners in the night.
I await your next call to be directed where to go.
I travel where I am told!

Yet, while toward the mark I travel, I wonder
about being bold,….
and how much influence I have over
when and how I shall explode!

The end

Copyright © 2009, by Charles N. Guthrie

This was written in 1969. I was 26 years old. Written during the period I worked on a special police unit called “21-X” which only responded to domestic, and neighborhood disputes. My partners in the Southern California police department I worked for were Lee Curtis, and Randy Swanson. We handled 21 years of domestic disputes in about two years. Good guys, both of them. This poem is 40 years old, has ridden around in the back of cars, stored in lockers, under beds, in closets, and computers; has survived marriages and girl friends, even a car wreck and it’s a good feeling to let it loose. It’s not a real story, but we did have to talk a man with a bible out from under his house.
When I wrote the poem my thoughts were about police enforcing a divine morality on earth, angels with guns. At some point on earth morality is enforced by someone with deadly force. Like the bullet shot at the target, once assigned a radio call we had little choice but to arrive and handle the situation. The idea that there is something watching over all of us, aiming us towards a divine ending and we’re all part of the divine scheme is contrasted with the idea that a drunk god could be shooting us like bullets at the moon for no apparent reason. A bullet hurtling toward a target trying to make sense out of its life, trying to have some control over its direction and understanding of its purpose before it explodes seemed analogous to what we were doing for a living. In the real sense, not just police but everyone is that bullet.

The spirits of the Romans and Ghengis Khan

all now sleep beneath a parchment of mud;

all fallen, submerged and forgotten.

Our souls in time will be drowned

into the canvas on which we stand.

But this mud is special mud,

the mud beside the road to Stalingrad.

This is not ordinary mud.

This mud gave the allies time to think,

to plan, and slowed the blitzkrieg in its track.

This mud contains the bone and blood

of the daughters and sons of Stalingrad.

Who with rifles, bloody fists and rocks

brushed a masterpiece of free will and defiance

using up the colors of their life to stand like Atlas.

Their spirit smote awe struck the Nazi army,

and brought halt to tanks and soldiers of the enemy.

Do not look puzzled when unnoticed

I remove mud from beside the road to Stalingrad

to cradle through Berlin across an ocean;

to take the mud to the other side of the world;

to place the dirt in a flower pot in Rhode Island,

where I’ll grow forget-me-nots that echo a bouquet

of gunshots from a battle far away.        

I suppose in time soldiers and scribblers

along with guns and words all drowned

into the canvas on which they stand.

Their romantic words about flowers

and memories all covered by mud’s parchment.

But the sons and daughters of Stalingrad

brushed with their lives the world.

Copyright © 2009, by Charles N. Guthrie

Tricky Dick slammed his fist

down on his oval desk;

then, with a frown yelled,

 “ The war in Viet Nam be damned!”

He thought John Dean was to blame

for signs outside that ridiculed his name;

but it was the ghost of Judy Mae Hess,

from 20 years ago;

who died an Indian Princess

on a TV puppet show

who brought the protest.

. . . .

Once upon a childhood long ago,

along with millions of other little boys

I was in love with an Indian Princess

on a TV puppet show.

The princess’ name was Summerfall Winterspring.

When she looked  through the TV screen

her voice talked about being good and true

as if she was talking just to you.

Then one fall day, in 1953,

the Indian Princess Summerfall Winterspring,

Buffalo Bob, a character on the show explained,

had gone to the “Happy Hunting Ground.”

Fantasy came tumbling down.

Mothers in their kitchens fixing dinners

saw little children pointing fingers at TV sets,

asking with angry, crying faces,

“Who behind the screen made the decisions?

Answer-less parents called TV stations.

That night a million little boys cried to dreams.

. . . .

Some of us, years later in the library stacks;

found her again in old magazines.

The Indian Princess from the TV set,

the one that took my heart with all the rest

at last had a name like everyone else.

Her real name was Judy Mae Hess.

The article said, “She had been fired.”

Her departure was finally explained.

She went on to star in the movie

Jailhouse Rock with Elvis Presley.

Her career was having great success

under her real name Judy Mae Hess.

But her real name was lost to little fans

who were forgotten in the TV lands.

In the middle of her success, Judy Mae Hess,

love of my life and everyone else;

died in a car crash in Rock River, Wyoming.

The obituary failed to mention her absence

going unexplained from a puppet show in 1953,

was the most romantic event of the Twentieth Century.

But, back then who could have predicted or known

the absence of a princess on a puppet show

would begin in the minds of children

a skeptical explosion ?

. . . .

Two decades had passed and the puppets

Bluster and Flub-a-dub were left in closets.

Judy Mae Hess was in a mausoleum.

Tricky Dick was fighting the war in Viet Nam

and trying to deal with war protestors at home.

He wondered from where the angry young men came.

Dick thought it was John Dean he had to blame.

He looked out and over the Rose Garden Gate

at the signs and pickets that ridiculed his name

and wondered again from where they came.

Alas, he didn’t see the ghost of Judy Mae Hess

who died in a puppet show an Indian Princess.

Copyright  ©  2009 Charles N. Guthrie

Charles N. Guthrie lives and writes in Southern California.

In November 1953, Judy Tyler, (maiden name, Judy Mae Hess) was fired from the “Howdy Doody Show,” a TV puppet show.  She played the role of an Indian Princess called Summerfall Winterspring.  When she was taken off the show an uproar came from her young audience and their parents.  Her disappearance from the show was never explained to millions of young viewers.  On July 4, 1957, Judy Tyler, and her husband Gregory Lafayette, were killed in an automobile accident in Rock River, Wyoming.   At the time of the publication of this poem the memory of Judy Mae Hess haunts a romantic generation of men in their mid 60s. If you will the first TV children.  The long term effect of her unexplained removal from the “Howdy Doody Show,” and the skepticism and broken hearts it produced influenced American politics and history.  My apologies for having some fun with President Nixon’s name.  He is my favorite president.  History will treat Nixon as one of our greatest presidents who put country over everything.  The Hamletian issues he faced and how he resolved them will eventually make him more popular in history than his own time.