I’m thinking of a humorous caption to put on this, relative to Covid–“What Did Wilson Know About Coronavirus?”; or “We are Wilson!”; or, “Covid 19 Really Started in Michigan!”
Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks!
And Tim the Toolman is pretty much the stereotype anti-masker around here!
2 Likes
I can understand wanting some personal space around Tim too. 
Edit: I’m also reminded of the Robert Frost line “Good fences make good neighbors.” I guess that applies to masks as well.
3 Likes
I may borrow that for any conversations I get into about mask wearing.
2 Likes
Had to look that up again. Interesting. I was remembering it as justifying the sentiment that good fences make good neighbors. But as I read it now I feel the sentiment of the writer is to question the universal application of that maxim without cause … for example if either neighbor keeps cows. I know two instances in my area where garden loving neighbors have taken down the wall between them. Both have fairly generous lots and each had a distinct but pleasing landscape. So both enjoy both spaces as they please. In the other instance a younger garden designer surrounded by aging neighbors offered one by one to take the fence between them down and to help keep their garden up and to add new plantings from her own nursery. I believe their joint holding is six small lots now, the lot on either side of the garden designer and the three lots across from them. A good deal for all of them and the older neighbors are certainly less isolated socially now as well. So at least some of the time, it is good to heed that something that doesn’t like a wall, that would rather have it down.
Mending Wall
By Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
But this is the humor thread so here is a wall joke. Trigger warnings: the punchline is in questionable taste if you don’t care for dark humor.
What do Pink Floyd and Princess Diana have in common?
Their last big hit was the wall.
2 Likes
I think it is true that that poem’s oft quoted phrase is terribly out of context, and the meaning distorted. Not uncommon to do so, as Frost’s "The Road Not Taken " is similarly mis-interpreted. As is the Bible.
1 Like
Interesting. I read the guide to that poem at the same site I cited above. It is as you say, and I like many had fallen into the same misconception in thinking Frost meant to extol being willing to try new, less traveled paths. If he hadn’t been aiming at joking with his depressed friend who was having difficulty making any choice at all, perhaps he would have written a better poem. One that addressed less ambiguously the need to make choices in life even when you can’t see entirely where each alternative will lead. In some sense, every choice we make comes to feel inevitable in hindsight, though it rarely feels that way at the time.
2 Likes
Apparently going as an Obnoxious Germaphobe to the Halloween party was confusing… eh.
2 Likes
That is hilarious.
2 Likes
At first glance, I fully expected to see a ‘Larson’ on it.
3 Likes
I love the stress test! 
(Roaches might be an adequate substitute.)
3 Likes
Pfft… Spiders or cockroaches - I’d barely move the needle 
5 Likes
Hey, Liam – Good to see you!
2 Likes
Thanks Dale. Not sure how much posting I’ll be doing, but I am reading what I can when I can.
2 Likes
I think I’m posting enough “Close to Home” by McPherson! I’ll have to give it a break.
4 Likes