Dancin’ Steve reminded me of the HRC’s Poetry on the Plaza so we sat and listened, during the lunch hour, to four UT dean’s read some of their favorite poems. The Communications Dean introduced this one hilariously saying, I’d like to open with that great French existential poet…Ogden Nash.
Come On In, The Senility Is Fine
by Ogden NashPeople live forever in Jacksonville and St. Petersburg and Tampa,
But you don’t have to live forever to become a grampa.
The entrance requirements for grampahood are comparatively mild,
You only have to live until your child has a child.
From that point on you start looking both ways over your shoulder,
Because sometimes you feel thirty years younger and sometimes thirty years older.
Now you begin to realize who it was that reached the height of imbecility,
It was whoever said that grandparents have all the fun and none of the responsibility.
This is the most enticing spiderwebs of a tarradiddle ever spun,
Because everybody would love to have a baby around who was no responsibility and lots of fun,
But I can think of no one but a mooncalf or a gaby
Who would trust their own child to raise a baby.
So you have to personally superintend your grandchild from diapers to pants and from bottle to spoon,
Because you know that your own child hasn’t sense enough to come in out of a typhoon.
You don’t have to live forever to become a grampa, but if you do want to live forever,
Don’t try to be clever;
If you wish to reach the end of the trail with an uncut throat,
Don’t go around saying Quote I don’t mind being a grampa but I
hate being married to a gramma Unquote.