BE MY GUEST I doubt, seriously, if any of my college professors, classmates or co-workers would have looked approvingly on any of the pages of a scrapbook I maintained in those days and months of long ago we called “1934”and “1935”. They might well wondered why I chose to include in the variety of newspaper clippings which were,I assume, to represent the essence in the era. Why,they would certainly wonder, why I choose to include did I choose a boxy little, single-column item headed:“Just Folks”.
It was daily feature written by the most eminent and financially blessed poet of our time. He wrote for the ultra-average persons among us. There were those who insisted they never took valuable time to read “his stuff.” (Some said: “such trash”). It was syndicated in hundreds of papers and served well, I thought at the time, as pert,a bit sassy and cutting comment on our actions, deeds and devious in the l930's. He wrote “verse” we read as “poetry” and he, with some others who had the a rare “human touch” with a words brought us up and over the literary quagmire of the l930's Depression Years.
I dared anyone to dig out a selection of Guest's greatest to be re-read personally. Take, for instance, a poem he did titled “Dogs and Men” which just happens to be the first one in my old scrapbook. It is short poem in which he points out the fact that when dogs have nothing to do, it being day or night, be they thoroughbred or mongrel will stretch out and sleep that time away when they have time to kill. No customs to obey; no certain hours when things must be done. They have time to kill. The poet sees the contentment and restorative rest and wishes he could sleep like that.
I find yet another secondary value in having saved those Edgar G. poems: Having been syndicated, each of the has printed in the edge the date of publication. Nowhere else in that collection of too closely clipped clippings did I date any item. The daily dated Guest verses keep me on track. Rather than concern myself about such a lapse, perhaps I had best stretch out and take a nap.
A.L.M. February 9, 2006 [c395wds]
