Up and Down the Road One of my earliest memories was to be nestled upon his lap guiding the Studebaker ‘up the road’. I must have been all of three, and I can even place the exact spot upon the road, the road he will soon travel for a last time—dead at eighty four. It was in those lawless days, those one lane days when belts did nothing more that hold pants up or drop whiskey down. My uncle was almost always ‘up the road’ for there were two places only then, on that peninsular, water-bound refuge of my youth, bounded on one side by the Potomac and the other by the Chesapeake- home more or less comprising a few square miles of Point Lookout, and that other place, far away and as alien to me as the moon that the adults referred to as ‘up the road’. When Uncle Bud dubbed ‘The Judge’ was down the road and at home it was always memorable in both little and big ways—all the ways, simply because it was so unusual. The summers seemed to lumber along leaving too few vivid recollections of ‘The Judge’ at home. There was that spell of time with the funny monkey, the monkey grinder kind of monkey; nervous, and always climbing about, with big rolling, suspicious eyes. ‘The Judge’ appeared one afternoon with it upon his back. He brought this creature home from ‘up the road’. This novelty soon melted away though into a menagerie of no less than six or seven collies, birds of all kinds, and those wild cats that lived under the house of my grandmother’s in their parallel universe. We had two homes on the point then before the dark time when the state, our state, pushed us off the tip of the Point to build a state park and ravage memory. Only the lighthouse remains today and one house, the Judge’s house for the use of the park ranger. I only remember making my uncle mad the one time, and I only knew of this fact years later when my aunt let me know how angry he had been. It was the pigs you see; three, I think there were; in that sty I turned to quick sand one day. Well, I was bent upon perfect pigs and must have been so turned I decided to water down their sty; to make them clean. It didn’t seem right that they should always be dirty. I was around five years old and I had discovered the hose. I liked the hose whether the pigs did or not and the vegetable garden next to it that I liked to help water. Well it seems I had left that hose to run in the sty for the better part of a whole hot St. Mary’s County day distracted by who knows what, and it was Bud who came upon them later in the night. They must have run dry of squeals hours before. My aunt had trouble telling me of this some decades later as she was laughing so hard at the thought of how you dry out a sty with three near drowned pigs. He never said a word to me of it, but I suspect it had sent him back ‘up the road’ for the better part of the remainder of that night and as usual to the wee and childless hours of the morning. I did not hear him come in but we rarely did. My uncle would be the last to leave whatever bar would be the last of the night, and slowly make his way back down the single lane of a narrow two to us and home. Many men on the Point in fairness thou spent long days and longer nights ‘up the road’ or out on the bay. The peninsula was a world of women and children especially by day. Well, I learned years ago that Bud was almost always the last to leave or if you must say it, “close the bar” not so much for the drink as for the dire necessity felt by his buddies to beat him to ‘the road’. To find oneself behind my Uncle Bud, going as slow as he did weaving home in thrice the time it would for a less diligent drunk, was to invite that much more trouble from a suspicious wife. and so it was the custom for everyone else to start to leave ten minutes before closing lest they end up held up behind ‘The Judge’ on his way ‘down the road’. I don’t recall how long he actually was a traffic court judge, elected by so many acquaintances and connections to the County’s principal sport, bar hopping with buddies, but I do remember it was a convenient reign. I’ll have you know too that there was nothing irregular in it, not to the times anyway, as Uncle Bud never got so much as one ticket or landed in one ditch like so many others leaving ten minutes before. It is this that probably got him elected; this, and the fairness of the man. The place was all about comfortable and familiar names the greater part of the population of graveyards I now visit. I never remember any of the men of my family actually drunk ‘cept Dad and him only periodically. He took safety from it as best he could at sea for months at a time and only went ‘up the road’ so to speak for a week or two when in port—one week to drink and the other in some place that made it all better again. My uncle and his brother, my father, were not the same kind you see. My grandmother, aunts, and my very own mother were all of one in their constant attendance upon these doings and to making sure the children knew nothing of it. Indeed we did not, not in the early days. These were the days of sand, sun, swimming and seafood all under the protection of women who were sober yet besotted in their sobriety. Now I wait to go with a sure telephone call, south into the bottom of the state of my Maryland on the left side of the bay into territory still magical and mysterious for me to attend the funeral of this good man and give my support to a family; the very roots of this early state. He came directly from the six original families to the ‘Islands of the Bay’. His ancestors came from Cornwall, in England and settled the whole of both sides of the lower Bay and islands in between. Most all on the islands anyway are still descendants of these early settlers taking their turns ‘fore being lain back down into the soggy ground that they call home. Everything is supposed to sink like Henderson eventually but we don’t speak of that and have too much faith to believe it. I could relate a dozen facts or stories like the few at hand, but I shall end with one not so funny perhaps, but it bespeaks the man. Back in seventy eight at the funeral of my father, through my own grief, I could see how Bud was affected. Oh it was not just a sad event, the funeral. It was as funerals usually are in my family held ‘up the road’ in St. Marys City, and it was as much comedy as tragedy to even out and temper grief and leave a properly balanced tribute. I remember how shocked I was when the train of our mismatched cars hooked to Buds Cadillac pulled into the pea gravel drive of Trinity Episcopal Church in our state’s beautiful First Capitol at the numbers of people who waited there to pay a last tribute to a father I did not know was so valued by so many-- I had been too close to see the full measure of him. It will be the same for ‘The Judge’. I have come to expect it now. The church then was too small as it will be again for this turn. Then, my poor uncle had gone quite liquid in more than tears, and the drink in combination with some of Dad’s left over pills had lifted Bud rather too High Church for the occasion. My aunt who I will simply describe as magic manifested in human form had already been seated when Bud made his way down the aisle and taken his seat only to turn and address the small assembly with six words or so of what I think was not Shakespeare! It all happened so quickly I could not quite catch it, but I do know that my aunt and I had an awful time containing ourselves through this solemn ceremony. Grief will come forth in giggles if it is triggered, and my uncle had fired away a volley totally out of character all of his own to fully match the twenty one gun salute to follow the funeral. Hundreds had been thoroughly entertained. My poor uncle’s daughter was beside herself keeping up the custom of being besotted in sobriety, and when all was done and they had handed me the flag and all these people were leaving, there was Bud sitting atop an ancient stone-- he grown as heavy now as it, with the weight I knew of sorrow. He was as silent and near as dead as the one whose stone he sat upon when it came to that. Suddenly, in a loud and irate voice, his daughter, my good cousin, suddenly let it be known to anyone still around that in her opinion, “they have put the wrong one in the ground”! Well, so you will not think us too irreverent and without any good sensibilities, let me say that, once ‘The Judge’ found his ground again, he has stayed grounded these three decades since. I think that a good tribute to his brother and an even better measure of him. Do not judge a man for a disease. It is neither fair nor accurate. Judge him rather for his honors won in the only right war of the last century, his distinguished naval career, his thirty years played out, too, ‘up the road’ turning diligent metal for test planes so accurate and steady-handed that today a machine must take his place. And finally judge ‘the Judge’ for the number of cars in the train and even more for the number that, as is the custom, pulled to the side of the now two lane road as we passed--traffic stopped coming the other way, forgetting hurry and pausing, lights on, in a light way of respect. Somewhere today and into tonight there are plans being made. Who will bear the pall? Has someone gotten Lillian to come and stuff the ham? In what hall will we cram them all, Legionnaires and Masons who are all about their wardrobes, and the preparation of guns and flags-- the flowers of men? Those of us far away so many in numbers are making plans to come soon, as do I. I’m going back. I grieve. I’m going ‘down the road’ to stand ‘side my magical aunt amidst a family, American and in no small measure proud Marylanders. I am going to where the Potomac and the Chesapeake collide. I am going home. © 2007 by E.D. Ridgell	[2005] The Upper Left Hand Corner Recall the coal eaters, those iron trains of past, puffing high white billows into the sky from their black stacks. Picture one under a blue skied and puffy, moonlit night racing forward, a search light leading its way, and you have the mind’s eye of one memory, a lionized reminiscence from earliest childhood. Only a few years old, wide-eyed and watchful, I remember that I was told I was on an adventure, only what exactly an adventure was I did not know. I was sure though I was not in any place near where I called home. I had come a long way, on a silver plane; I think it was called the Super G, a popular American flyer. My mother brought me to visit hers: a woman I was supposed to call grandmother although I’d already been given one of those. Of the ride in the sky, I most remember clouds pillowed everywhere as I stared from one of the tiny silver windows. Who would not notice clouds when first studied from train or plane? I believe this must have been the beginning of my love affair with clouds. The train sped open handed into the blue white night and I remember looking out of a large, thick paned window at a site I knew even then was special, something to be imbedded to stoke my mind. Rising from a click clacked sleep with fiery eyes, I beheld a vista of shimmering snow, be specked with Christmas garden, marshmallow, laden trees. Everything was brightly spotlighted by a fulsome moon that peeked in and out from behind rolling milky clouds. Close but far enough to feel safe, out along the horizon, moved a herd of what I’m certain I thought then were reindeer and today know were a thousand or more caribou. They were half of them up and half of them below a horizontal ledge along the irregular bluish whitely line dividing land and sky. Leaping up and down as if in playful turns, kicking up flurries of snow, I’m sure they had some Rudolf leading them as they seemed intent; quick but not hurried. I remember these Caribou moved as one wave in an opposite yet parallel direction to the train. It seemed we raced by and away from one another at an equal speed. I know too, now that I know the geography and history of my family, which we tread upon, a piece in the upper left hand corner on a cardboard puzzle spread on the floor for me to see and somehow know. I only knew I was part of a bigger whole, something called USA and I felt a little safer for it. With Christmas coming and the grandchildren wanting to know these sorts of things, fairy tales to them, I’ve taken a little time to search out what became of these caribou that still race through the upper left hand corner of my mind. My little fawns always seem to have questions intent to catch some good natured trickery to my stories. I learned that like so many other things seemingly unlimited, then, that now there are many less caribou, and that they must be reckoned and tallied to track their true numbers. I know more about the fewer whales too, but that’s not the same thing I suppose. Caribou must take up a lot of room like whales do, and there are so many more of us today, so many more, and they tell us we need the room. I have heard that the droves are much farther to the north today and even farther up into the upper left hand corner of that pieced board that became America, playing and jumping among long pipe lines running with the herds. I wonder if the Caribou move so fast as then and where they go. Is there an end to the northern upper left hand corner? I’ll tell a loving fib on Christmas Eve and tell the children it can not be so. © 2005 by E.D. Ridgell
	Some Reflections on Free Verse Free verse are various styles of poetry that are written without adhering to strict meter or rhyme, but that still are recognized as poetry in their thoughtful patterns of one sort or another that come together into a coherent whole. That said, T. S. Eliot wrote: "No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job." Many of the same tools used by the poet in one form are used also in free verse; anaphora, alliteration, assonance, cadence, internal rhymes, onomatopoeia, and so on. Free verse becomes blank verse only when it adheres to iambic pentameter. It is not my intention to delve adnauseum into what free verse is or the history of it. That can easily be researched at any search engine, library, etc. Neither am I trying to put free verse above any other form of verse. In my opinion the subject often helps to dictate the form of verse used. Far too often, however, I feel we as poets get “stuck” in one comfortable form and rarely move out of it. It is for that reason, I will sometimes write in the traditional metrical forms or experiment with more exodic forms. In my opinion none of us should get stuck. That is why the different forums at Poetry at the Pub are so valuable when the moderators present us with different challenges, forms, prose pieces, risks, etc. It is to nudge us to grow in our craft. I wish to share some personal perspectives about free verse as I experience it. Free verse is for me the “method acting” of poetry. When I first started to write poetry, I was very much influenced by Mary Oliver and was subsequently amazed to find how the forms suggested by her writings would shape the results. I discovered that my words could sound poetic. I think we’ve all been there. Then I was invited to join a private workshop on-line of poets who in truth were far above me and who wrote in traditinal and free verse. Never had I read such beautiful sestinas, villenelles, etc. open for criticism. Like so many on-line workshops we had our problems, but all in all, I learned a great deal, and I tried my hand at free verse which up until then seemed so alien to me. Eventually this workshop for reasons of its own faded away. I took away from it what I needed though and left the rest. What I took with me was a new appreciation for free verse. In my opinion like method acting for the artist as actor it facilitates the emergence of your own complicated phyche. And, because at that time poetry became a integral part of my own phychoanalosis, I learned just how liberating the results could be. I was emoting things I was not even aware of until they were pointed out to me. I was hooked! I became and still am very interested and involved in poetry as therapy, for myself, for people undergoing counseling of one form or another, and for the young and old who are experiencing their own unique stages in life. I also find free verse as challenging as metrical verse but in a whole different arena. For me, it was like learning to play music by ear without having any knowledge of written notes. In order to become better and better at it, you must contiually practise it. It is a very personal discipline. I was trained as a visual artist and it was ingrained into me to take risks and to experiment if I was to fully appeciate the awe and wonder of art. I belive poetry is no different and in my case I find free verse a perfect catapult for experimentation and risk taking. In the development of all art unless one artist or a group of artists pushes forward and thinks outside of the box, so to speak, nothing new happens. Also, I find I learn a great deal from my mistakes. Some of the best art is produced as a result of the accident. What appears to be a mistake or an accident on my part, particularly in free verse, often ends up to be poetic to the ear. Whatever the form we use let us not just ignor these opportunities that mistakes and accidents can produce. History is fraught with the beauty and sound of serendipity. Free verse can be an important vehicle to that serendipity. © 2009 by E.D. Ridgell