The Owl and the PussyCat

 

The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea In a beautiful pea-green boat,

They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar,

"O lovely Pussy! 0 Pussy, my love,

What a beautiful Pussy you are, you are, you are,

What a beautiful Pussy you are."

Pussy said to the Owl "You elegant fowl

How charmingly sweet you sing.

O let us be married, too long we have tarried;

But what shall we do for a ring?"

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the Bong-tree grows,

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood

With a ring at the end of his nose, his nose, his nose,

With a ring at the end of his nose.

"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling your ring?"

Said the Piggy, "I will"

So they took it away, and were married next day

By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a crucible spoon.

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand.

They danced by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

Edward Lear

1812-1888

Hey from Charlotte!

From the collection, 'Letters to Jo Ann.' 

Hey from Charlotte!

Man I glad to be back down in the south where they call 40 degrees cold! I ask them in Maine why they bothered with the zero when it got so much colder than that, they said, “Zero defines the seasons, in the summer it’s above zero, in the winter, it ain’t.” Up in Maine I spit 0n the ground and instead of splat! I got plink, plink, dink, dink, crack, shatter. It’s the only place I’ve been where you can spit in your hand and throw a rock! At least in the south the kids have to find a damn rock before they can throw it. 

It was so cold I had to put the anti-freeze in the coffee, and the engine, you just don’t dare kill it! I sneezed on the guy next to me, and they took him to the hospital for shotgun wounds. 

It was so damn cold you could get a ticket for driving drunk on the lake. Not because you were on the lake, but because you were drunk. The traffic on the lake was so heavy they had traffic signs. ‘Caution, fishing village ahead,’ and you’re miles from shore.

But the people of Maine truly are concerned about your well-being. It got to be about lunch and I was going to go dig around in the trash can for some thing to eat, but Nooooo! They saved me, on the can it said, ‘For Your Good Health, Can Picking Prohibited!’ So I went to a restaurant instead. And they have little signs everywhere, ‘Please Do Not Eat the Yellow Snow!’ Am I a lucky fellow or what, I thought it was banana flavored, but Noooo! Apparently they are saving it for posterity, and here I would have eaten it up!

I had a moose come and sniff up my butt, talk about intimidating, trying to explain to a 1200 pound moose that not only are you not a female, but oddly enough, not a moose at all, and sniffing up your butt would be, well???  Unproductive.

Man, am I glad to be back in the south where no one gives a damn if you dine out of the garbage cans and if you eat the yellow snow, now that’s funny!! Where if you drive on the lake, you use something called a boat!!! And at least in the south, the deer find you intimidating!  ©

George Henry Nichols 

Chances are, I got a Ticket

From the collection (Letters to Jo Ann)

Hey from Bangor,

The weather man said it was going to be ten below zero. What the hell good is a ZERO, if we godda get ten below that! It’s so bloody cold I stopped to take a leak and had to use a cork screw to find my ahhh… then I peed a stalagmite. The state is so hard up for money, on my way back I noticed a sign said, “See natural amber formation, $1.00

Ya know when I bought this truck, they said it had 13 speeds, well I can  find ‘R’, ‘N’ and ‘L’ but I be damned if I can find one that says ‘D’. But one good thing, as an old man, they can’t tell if I’m shiftin’ gears or passin’ gas….???? And….Uhhhhhhhh….. Well???... I ain’t sayin’.

          I passed a trooper pointin’ a hair dryer at me (you know all them troopers got a hair dryer these days) and then he pulled me over. “Can’t you read?? That sign back there says trucks and trailers 55 mph!” I said, “sure I saw it, I got one of each, that’s 110 mph, and I was only doin’ 85.” He said, “Boy! Where did you get your license?” I said, “The Jack Daniels’ School of Truck Drivin’, Coke was my sponsor.” He wrote me a ticket.

          You know I weigh eighty thousand pounds, Eighty thousand pounds goes down hill real good, those little econo cars go pretty fast too when they all pile up on your front bumper going down a steep grade. A trooper pulled me over and said. “You know you’re shoven all them cars down this mountain.” “Just doing my part to conserve energy, sir.” He wrote me a ticket.

          The trouble with those little econo cars, they’re hard to wash off your grill.

I just love to teach them how to spell ‘Peterbilt’ backwards (as it appears in their rear view mirror) right before they’re sucked up into my fan.

          I got lost in a residential neighborhood and picked up a thump, thump, thump. A cop pulled me over and said, “You just ran over a little kid on a tricycle and he’s stuck in your duals!!” I said, “That’s all right. I saw him, he had on a safety helmet, and when I pick up some speed, it’ill throw him out.” He wrote me a ticket.

          A lot of trucks have a sign on them that say, ‘No lot lizards’.

I got one on my truck says, ‘Lot lizards welcome, I need a new pair of boots’.

          I bought a 500 watt CB for my truck, it’s got this button on the mike, when you push it a purdy little lite comes on says “on the air” and everybody can hear ya. But when you let lose of it, a bunch of crappy truck drivers start yakin’. So I got me some duck tape and I just tape that button down, now that purdy little lite stays on all the time, and I just sings my heart out going down the hyway. I know they all like it ‘cause they wave when they pass me by. Some of them use a finger, some no finger at all, but they all wave.

You know this thing got 18 tires. I can blow out 15 before I godda stop. I can scatter rubber and alligators over seven counties, (seven states if I’m up north). A trooper pulled me over and said, “You know you’ve blow’d out all your trailer tires and you’ve been plowin’ up pavement and leavin’ ruts for ten miles!! The road behind you is a mess!!” I said. “That’s okay, the road in front of me is fine.” He wrote me a ticket.

          I pulled onto a scale in West Virginny, and was told to pull to the side and come in. So I did, he said, “you’re 1200 pounds over gross, do you know how much you weigh?” I said, “Now look here! I may not be no prize, but I damn shore don’t weigh no 1200 pounds!” He wrote me a ticket. So trying to lighten things up a little I said, “Show is a purdy state you got here. Satellite Dish yor state flower?” He wrote me another ticket.

          I got stopped by a trooper down south, he got out and said, “Boy, don’t you know you’re in Atlanta!” I said rubbin’ my chin, “Atlanta? Atlanta? I’ve heard of Atlanta, now, now don’t tell me?? It’s a little town, let me think, in, oh yea, in east Texas, in a??? No, wait, give me a minute. In a county?? I know, I know. In a county we call, mmm Georgia.” He wrote me a ticket

          I was sittin’ at a counter in a diner havin’ a bowl of chili, when a trooper came in and sat down next to me. Just about then I ripped a stinker, ‘thubleeeeeiup’ I looked at him and smile while fanning the air a bit and said, “Missed a gear, I guess”. The trooper was looking rather pale and fannin’ the air quite a bit, mumbling something about methane pollution in the 3^rd degree, and wrote me a ticket.

          So darlin’, if there is anywhere you want to go, or some’m you want to see, give me a call, chances are I got a ticket.     ©

                                                          George Henry Nichols 

A Barrel of Ale

       'If I had a barrel of ale!'

      'If I had a barrel of ale!'

      I'd pay all me bills, and cure all me ills,

      And drink until I was pale,

      'If only I had a barrel of ale!'  ©

George Henry Nichols 

Puppies

I have puppies everywhere, I have puppies galore,

I’m just about fed up with them, I gonna pitch ‘em out the door

Some say they like them, they say there’re cute and nice.

But I just sit here scrach’n , I think they got the lice.

They say you cannot eat them, They say there’re not to sweet,

But I bet if you deep fried ‘em, they’d really be a treat.

Perhaps you could run ‘em thru and toss ‘em on the grill,

With a little sauce and veges,  they’d be Shis-ca-bob to trill.

Perhaps we could boil ‘em up, with a white sauce, oh that’s fine,

Then we could serve ‘em up with a twenty year old wine.

Or toss ‘em in the oven,  of course they’d be under glass

Then feed them to the King and Queen, a meal of course with class.

Perhaps we could bar-b-que ‘em out side for all to see,

And we’d invite the neighbors and tell them its chick-a-dee.

Or sell them to MacDonald’s, to make burgers for the poor,

For I have puppies everywhere, I have puppies galore. ©

George Henry Nichols