Ordeal By M. and St. L.
by James H. Rhoads
as recalled by his son, Gayle E. Rhoads.

There are many modes of travel in this scientific age,
You may take a trip by airplane if you earn a handsome wage.
[If time is not a factor, and you choose to go awheel
You may ride a speedy diesel in a coach of stainless steel.]
If your revenue is smaller, and you have to live on less,
You can make a pleasant journey by The Mail or Fast Express.
[Now, if you're independent and your budget's up to par
There's no better means of travel than a swanky streamlined car.]
But there is another method, list' ye moderns, while I tell,
Of some ninety miles I covered on the quaint old M St. L.
I had risen rather early, my appointment couldn't wait.
I called the station agent. He said the train was late.
Then with stolid resignation, a light breakfast I did eat,
And I loitered as I sauntered down the walk with heavy feet.
['Twas with more or less reluctance that I climbed abord the hack]
It was just an old red way-car standing mutely by the track,
But I knew that once she started, she would creak and groan and roll.
Then I cast my gaze about me. There was not another soul
Had the courage or the folly to start out on such a trip
Save the bug-faced old conductor, with his squatty little grip.
First he pulled his red bandana, and he gave his nose a swipe,
Then he dumped some fresh Bull Durham in his putrid corn-cob pipe,
And as the smoke arising made a halo 'round his head,
I wished I hadn't started, but had stayed at home instead.
When he hopped off the rear platform, gave the highball to the cab,
They must have pulled the throttle 'cause the brakes began to grab.
The wreck began to shudder, up and down and to and fro,
As if she couldn't quite decide which way she ought to go.
Then suddenly she made a lunge, as if to take the air,
I almost didn't find myself still sitting in my chair.
If a table hadn't stopped me, I'd have landed on the floor.
If she'd jerked a second time, I'd have been out the back door.
[It's a mighty queer sensation when your chair begins to dance,
And you know if it continues you'll be busting out your pants.
So to minimize vibration and to check the wear and tear,
I locked my legs securely 'round a steel pole anchored there.
But soon I had to loose my hold--it wasn't any joke--
You see I had to close the stove--it, too, began to smoke.
The noxious gasses I inhaled; for oxygen I gasped.
With eyes aflame and throat athirst, my handkerchief I grasped.
No water there to quench my thirst, no soap to loose the dirt!
No towel to wipe my hands, except a piece of Aunt Dade's skirt!]
A feather duster lies quite near, motheaten, gray, and patched,
I'm told the birds who bore those plumes, were in the 6[0]'s hatched.
[And can it be these wheels that squeak beneath this old caboose
Were rolling o'er these praries wild before the slaves were loose?]
These many holes weren't made by nails, they're bullet holes instead,
Inflicted by some redskins gun, in vengeance for his dead.
[What stories might this old bench tell upon which now I sit--
Of hoary travelers long ago who coughed and chewed and spit!]
The dirt upon the walls is thick, still thicker on the floor,
They say the boy who cleaned it last, died in the Civil War.
[And in the air hangs aged smoke exhaled from Granddad's lungs;]
And on the floor lie horse shoe quids, expelled by ancient tongues
Old wads of gum, well decomposed, beneath these benches stuck,
Remembrances of yesterdays when gold was brave man's luck.
Here microbes live in luxury, and germs play fast and loose,
And eat their fill each livelong day, of stale tobacco juice.
[Here dwell small creatures tame and wild, a rendezvous for mice;
A habitat for roaches sleek, for bugs and slugs and lice!
O, what is wrong with all my thoughts? My mind begins to reel!
A sickening sensation in my abdomen I feel!]
My breakfast! It is coming up! Or can I keep it down?
Oh when will this old loathsome crate blow whistle for my town?
[My nausea is growing worse! When will this old hearse stop?
Why don't the owners give this junk to some old curio shop?
Ah, joy unbounded! Can it be?] my station is in view!
A breath of air! I'm rallying, my journey's nearly through.
[You talk about your prisons and the concentration camps,]
And all the other methods for detaining thugs and scamps,
But methinks that when the devil, plans to take his gang to hell,
He'll ask to sign a charter for the miserable St. L.

The poem "He" showed up in a lot of GER's sermons and devotional talks.

He

Men are of two kinds, and he
Was the kind I'd like to be.
Some preach their virtues, and a few
Express their lives by what they do;
That sort was he. No flowery phrase
Or glibly spoken word of praise
Won friends for him. He wasn't cheap,
Or shallow, but his course ran deep,
And it was pure. You know the kind.
Not many in life you find
Whose deeds outrun their words so far
That more than what they seem, they are.

"Ozymandius" furnished the inspiration for the name of Gayle's last poodle.

OZYMANDIAS
Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped in these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings
Look on my works, ye mighty, and dispair."
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Gayle wrote out this sonnet in calligraphy on his fortieth birthday.

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 2

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held.
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer, "This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,"
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

"Western Hills" had a coveted spot next to "High Flight" on the file cabinet next to Gayle's desk.

Western Hills
Elizabeth-Ellen Long

A hill, out west, grows lanky and
lean,
No soft grass on it , no flabby
green,
Sun-tanned, wind-wrinkled,
leather-skinned land,
Tough and wiry as an old cow
hand.
In lonely silence it rides the range,
Day in and day out, without a
change,
Watching over sagebrush, keeping
stray
Live-oak trees from wandering
away.
From dawn to dark, always
astraddle
The gaunt ribbed desert's dusty
saddle,
Rides the sky's blue range, rides
far and wide
With only its shadow at its side.

High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings.
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sunsplit clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of, wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the wind swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, not even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind, I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Gayle kept a separate file of notes on the author of this poem:

Born in China/ American father/ English mother Father a clergyman At 9, attended Rugby School 1940, attended Yale/ joined RCAF. Wrote parents during training, "An aeroplane is not to us a weapon of war, but a flash of silver slanting the skies; the hum of a deep-voiced motor; a feeling of dizziness; it is speed and ecstasy." Instructor noted, "Patches of brilliance, tendency to overconfidence." Later, his poetic talent and meditative demeanor were a cause for concern in his squadron. So excited with first flights in Spitfires, he wrote his feelings on the back of an envelope or sack, and set them to his parents. He said, "It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed. I thought it might interest you." First published in Flying, May 1942. Dated a written Sept 3, l941. Editors predicted 'High Flight" would become a classic. President Reagan intoned its lines in his tribute to the crew of the Challenger.

"Thanatopsis" was one of Gayle's very favorites. It echoes the stoic resolution with which he approached his own death.

Thanatopsis - Selections from
William Cullen Bryant

. . .So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All who breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like a quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

CAP, SQ 31 - Feb 97
CAP, Wing Memorial Service, Ltc Robert Wood

"I'm On a Committee" accurately reflected the feelings Gayle often expressed about committees, which he loathed in the collective but endured in the particular.

I'm On a Committee!

Oh give me some pity, I'm on a committee,
which means that from morning to night,
We attend, and amend, and contend, and defend
without a conclusion in sight.

We confer and concur, we defer and demur,
and reiterate all of our thoughts.
We revise the agenda with frequent addenda,
and consider a load of reports.

We compose and propose, we suppose and oppose,
and the points of procedure are fun!
But though various notions are brought up as motions,
there's terribly little gets done.

We resolve and absolve, but we never dissolve,
since it's out of the question for us.
What a shattering pity to end our committee,
where else could we make such a fuss.

-Author Unknown

A Message of Importance

Some day when you're feeling important,
Some day when you're ego's in bloom,
Some day when you're feeling that you
Are the important one in the room
Take a bucket and fill it with water
Stick your hand in up to your wrist
Pull it out and the hole that's remaining
Will measure how much you'll be missed.
You may splash all you wish as you enter.
Stir the water around galore.
But you'll find when you finally leave it
It's exactly the same as before.
As you follow your daily agenda,
Always do the best that you can--
Be proud of yourself, but remember--
There is no indispensable man.

--Found in a file of materials, no date, no source.
Note the similarity of this poem to one of Gayle's
favorite stories, 'Thumb in the Bathtub,' found on
the "Inspirational Stories" page.

On Talent

Do not speak to me of talent,
For talent is not a commodity
That can be measured,
Or lent, or borrowed against.
It is not yours to do with
As you will.
It is a gift from God,
Not bestowed because you merit it;
But rather a glimmer of a thought
In the mind of God,
Alighting on you
At random.

-Donna Vossler Sleeman, in July 1988, The Artist, p. 37

The Heart - Stephen Crane

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, beastial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter,- bitter", he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart".

"Suppose Poe Had a Computer" has overtones of Gayle's ongoing battles with his various Macintosh computers, from his first Mac SE through his last, a green iMac given to him and BJ by his daughter-in-law.

Suppose Poe had a Computer!

Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bed sheets,
Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets
Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand, I then invoked the SAVE command
And waited for the disk to store,
Only this and nothing more.

Deep into the monitor peering, long I sat there wond'ring, fearing,
Doubting, while the disk kept churning, turning yet to churn some more.
"Save!" I said, "You cursed PC! Save my data from before!"
One thing did the phosphors answer, only this and nothing more,
Just, "> Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

Was this some bizarre illusion? Some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices undesired, ones I'd never faced before.
Carefully, I weighed the choices as the disk made impish noises.
The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting, baiting me to type some more.

Clearly I must press a key, choosing one and nothing more,
From "> Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

With my fingers pale and trembling
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee
Timidly I pressed a key.
But on the screen there still persisted words appearing as before.
Ghastly grim they blinked and taunted, haunted, as my patience wore,
Saying "> Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

I tried to catch the chips off-guard --
I pressed again, but twice as hard.
I pleaded with the cursed machine: I begged and cried and then I swore.
Now in desperation, trying random combinations,
Still there came the incantation, just as senseless as before.
Cursor blinking, angrily winking, blinking nonsense as before.
Reading, "> Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

There I sat, distraught, exhausted by my own machine accosted
Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor.
And then I saw a dreadful sight: a lightning bolt cut through the night.
A gasp of horror overtook me, shook me to my very core.
The lightning zapped my previous data, lost and gone forevermore.
And no "> Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

To this day I do not know
The place to which lost data go.
What dreaded nether world is wrought where all lost data will be stored?
Beyond the reach of mortal souls? Beyond the ether? In black holes?
But sure as there is C, Pascal, and Lotus, Ashton-Tate and more,
One day you'll be left to wonder, data trying to restore,
"Will I see it nevermore?"

Anonymous

Bittle Lum on a Sturbcone