Long Time Passing

Running errands on a Saturday or Sunday morning
means that I listen to Garrison Keillor
and Prairie Home Companion; Guy Noir
and The Lives of the Cowboys.

Sometimes I wonder how so much nasal singing
ended up on the same show with the news from Lake Woebegon;
with Minnesota and pot luck Lutheran suppers,
but I suppose only a deep analysis of Garrison Keillor
could answer that, and that might be impossible.

Today I heard someone sing about
"wanting to go back when you belonged to me".
If ever I should not want to go back,
it would be to when we owned someone.

Oh, I know! I know! what the sentiment is about,
but it is a dreadful way to talk, nonetheless.
It brings to mind marriage ceremonies in which
a father gives his daughter away to a younger man
and they are pronounced "man and wife".
Not man and woman, or husband and wife:
man and helpmate for a new household.

"Yew belong to me-e-e."

I liked, rather more, the song about girl's names:
"Where have all the Myrtles gone, and the Florences?"

Long time passing.

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