Playing with Words Written March 1965   Background:  Merely playing around as a high school senior, I waxed poetic.  Here are four examples of my notebook nonsense.   THE FAMILY TREE Once upon a time there was a man named Irving. Now a name like that can be extremely unnerving! When his sons were born, he decided he'd try To give them names that were fine for any ordinary guy So that when they were grown up, they would never have to hide. He named the first one Tim and the second one Clyde. Well, Tim and Clyde grew up and were wed, And soon each had two more mouths to be fed. Tim had two sons.  He called them Tim Junior and Clyde. Oh, Tim's two boys were his father's pride! And Clyde had two sons.  He called them Clyde Junior and Tim, And Clyde's two boys looked just like him! Now this generation grew up and got "caught," And before very long, each one had a tot      And then another. Tim Junior said to his cousin Tim, "I've got two baby boys.  What shall I call them?" "I know," said Tim.  "Name one of them      After Granddaddy Irving!" Tim Junior didn't like this.  "What do you think, Clyde?" He asked, and his brother replied, "About you I don't know, but I'm going to name My two boys — bless their hearts — the same As we were.  I'll call them Tim and Clyde." Did that one statement the issue decide?      Not at all! Tim Junior had an indomitable will. He decided to name his boys Tim and Bill! Then Clyde exploded:  "Tim!" he said, "What sort of a thought has come into your head? Tim, you've rejected all your relative Clydes — Me, your uncle, your cousin, and nephews besides — For you've gone and named your second son Bill!" "Aw, forget it," said Tim.  "Let's go out and build a grill." You see, the town they were in had no café or grill, So the two of them worked on building one until They'd forgotten their quarrel. The town prospered and grew, And the descendants of Granddaddy Irving did, too. Like rabbits in April, every Tim and Clyde Had two sons.  How the family multiplied!      There were 128 Tims.      There were 127 Clydes. But in all the Irving family, there was only one bill: For a dollar forty-seven at Tim & Clyde's Grill. UPDATES:  I discovered that very establishment in Cadogan, Pennsylvania, in 2015.  It appears that Clyde, who never really forgave his brother, must have bought him out. Then in 2016, Louis C.K. apparently stole my Tim and Clyde characters.  He renamed them Horace and Pete.  The ten-episode web series is set in a run-down Brooklyn bar, Horace and Pete's, that's been owned for the same family for a century — always with a Horace and a Pete in charge. Also in high school, I assembled the following 223-word sentence in reaction to the complexity of such mythic stories as Homer's Odyssey.   EPIC SENTENCE That the gentle soothing of the beautiful goddess was no longer so overwhelmingly attested to in its erstwhile certainty by the hope of the tearful wayward soldier and his faith in the mystic power of his shield to protect all who carried it against the admitted parsimony of the saint who had given the golden sword to the maiden who sat by the side of a gentle waterfall and gazed at all who chanced to pass by with a sad and sorrowful expression which belied her inward joy at having the power to change stones into men and thereby to raise such a great army that no one in all the kingdom dared to challenge her right to be the first in that great procession which every year slowly wound its way up from the valley to the top of the high mountain where the gods did live and offered to them all pleasing sacrifices so that no harm would come to men on earth who feared the gods and delighted in offering to them sweet-smelling incense which was made by an old hermit who lived beside a cave deep in the forest which lay at the foot of the mountain and extended in all directions with its trees of cedar and sycamore and its marvelous unicorns and centaurs and phoenixes, was obvious.     I also wrote a few parody lyrics to the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma!  But first, the backstory. Richwood High School, home of the Tigers, was in the process of merging with Byhalia High School, home of the Falcons.  Byhalia was an even smaller town than Richwood; at least Richwood had a movie theater of sorts in its old Opera House.  The two groups of students had been rivals, but from now on, they'd all have to be North Union Wildcats. Oklahoma addressed a similar situation in the song "The Farmer and the Cowman," which I started to rewrite as "The Tiger and the Falcon (Should Be Friends)."  I only got as far as these fragments: I'd like to say a word fer the Falcon. Byhalia is an underpriv'leged area.      Young farmers cannot go      To the moving-picture show. —But they still do get some idees that can scare ya! North Union folks should stick together,      North Union folks should all be pals, Richwood guys date Byhalia's females,      B'halia boys date Richwood gals! UPDATE:  In August 2024, during the Presidential campaign, Randy Rainbow released a much better parody of this song. I had some other parodies in mind.  The title song, of course, would begin with: Riiiiiiiiiiiiiichwood High School! Where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain. "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" would become an sarcastic "Oh, What a Wonderful High School." "Everything's Up to Date in Kansas City" would become "Everything's Out of Date at Richwood High School.  They've gone about as fur as they can go (straight down)!" And "Poor Jud Is Dead" would become "Poor Jud Is Wed."  Evidently Jud had gotten one of his classmates pregnant. A few months later, when I was a college freshman, I did manage to complete an entire verse and refrain for one song.  Set to the tune of "People Will Say We're In Love," it alludes to the frustration of the cheerleaders, whose cheering during class time had been curtailed by Principal Dean Cochran.   COCHRAN WILL SAY IT DETRACTS This is a school! The cardinal rule      Is work and learn. No other way A good educa-      tion can we earn. Therefore he cries, Our Principal wise,      That we should see: All that is not This studious rot      Just should not be. Don't hang those signs up here. Don't cheer around the halls. Don't sing up and down the halls.      Cochran will say it detracts! Don't shout those songs up here. "Fight songs" aren't right at school. We can't have this "fight" at school.      Cochran will say it detracts! Classes must not decay.      Give the pep sessions the axe. Spirit we must not display.      Cochran will say it detracts!     Finally, I found the stirring Welsh national hymn "Men of Harlech" in an old songbook.  I have since learned that Division III football power Mount Union College uses it as its alma mater, "Dear Old MUC."  But back then, I thought that it would make a good mock-heroic fight song for our high school athletes whenever they were predicted to lose, which was often.   MEN OF RICHWOOD Men of Richwood!  In your hearing Rises now a mighty cheering: Your opponents now are nearing,      In their eyes a gleam. They come boldly, loudly shouting, Never fearing, never doubting That quite soon they will be routing      Richwood's Tiger team. They are sad mistaken! We will not be shaken!      And should the game      Be lost, our name Will never be forsaken! Tigers!  'Tis your school that calls you! Fight your best, whate'er befalls you! This the cry that still enthralls you,      "On for Richwood High!"