If you're a baby boomer, the title of this blog has to bring back memories of Art Linkletter chatting up little kids, egging them on to say something funny or inappropriately revealing about their parents. The kids never failed to deliver, and in my world, the elementary classroom, they still do. Their antics, conversations, and anecdotes should have made me a published author by now. My poem, "Aunt Ruth" definitely was the result of a conversation with one of my students. I was handed a note explaining that the parents would be out of town for the week, and the child would be staying with relatives. The look on the child's face said it all. Take a little truth, add a little fiction, make it rhyme, and voila . . . Aunt Ruth. Enjoy!
Aunt Ruth
In the early days of autumn
When the leaves are brushed with gold
My folks will plan a "get-away,"
And next thing I'll be told
Is that I'm staying with my Auntie Ruth
Who lives just south of town
In a slightly weathered farmhouse
No, not weathered, it's run down!
And though I think my folks deserve
A little time to get away
I still beg, and plead, and wheedle
For them not to make me stay.
I remind them that Aunt Ruthie
Although sweet, and dear, and kind
Is bordering on senility
And may have lost her mind
How she knits and purls for hours
In her favorite rocking chair
And chats with late, great, Uncle Thad
Who isn't even there.
My dad just rolls his eyeballs
Which in esssence seals my fate
Then chucks my chin and says to me,
"You sure exaggerate!"
And I realize I'm beaten
He's convinced I stretch the truth.
They'll be going for the week end,
And I'll be staying with Aunt Ruth.
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