Rocket Trombone

An idea struck me earlier this week to combine a classic Christmas story/movie with a classic country song.  It took a couple days to figure out the lyrics, but I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.  Hope you enjoy it, Merry Christmas!

The Grinch Went Down to Whoville
based on “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” by Dr. Seuss
to the tune of “Devil Went Down to Georgia” by Charlie Daniels

The Grinch went down to Whoville, he was lookin’ for some Yule to steal
He was unkind, and he wanted to find the thing that gave the Whos their zeal
Well he came up with a grand plan as he was a-thinkin and he thunk it up good
Made the dog appear to be his reindeer and dressed up just like Santa would

Down from on Mt. Crumpet in a Santa sleigh he flew
The Whos were deep in blissful sleep, they didn’t have a clue
Well straight on into town he drove and at the first house he came to
Came to a stop, he climbed up top, and went on down the flue

The Grinch said “These here stockings must be the first to go”
And he was swift, he took every gift, every package, box and bow

Grinch, you are a mean one, yes, you really are a heel
You’re cuddly as a cactus, you’re as charming as an eel
Your brain is full of spiders and your heart’s an empty hole
And I’d say you’ve got garlic in your soul

The Grinch went ‘round from room to room and he took the whole Who feast
He cleaned out all the Who hash, took their pudding and roast beast
And when young Cindy-Lou asked why he’d come to take their tree
He lied and sent her back to bed, and took all that he could see

When the Grinch had gone to every house and loaded up his sleigh
He urged that poor dog Max to go, and they slowly drove away

Headin’ up the mountain, run Max, run
In the early light of the risin’ sun
Sittin’ at the peak all covered in snow
Lookin’ over Whoville down below

The Grinch then put his hand right up against his grinchy ear
But up from Whoville it was sounds of singin’ he could hear
He saw he hadn’t stolen Christmas, it came to Whoville anyway
And he gave a start, for the Grinch’s heart, got three times bigger that day

Comin’ down the mountain, run Max, run
The Grinch’s evil deeds must be undone
Brought back all the things that he did steal
The Whos then let him join their Christmas meal

You may have noticed Rocket Trombone has been down a good number of times over the past few months.  I’ve been having some hardware issues with my computer.  But it looks like I might be in good shape now.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get some new stuff posted soon.  Thanks for your patience, computers are fun!

EDIT: Oh yeah, and then there is grad school.  It’s my last semester, so I’m going to be pretty busy with classwork and researching/writing my scholarly paper.  So you probably won’t hear much from me until graduation.  I’m so close!!!

My dad’s birthday is this week.  And, as my friend Christy informs me, today is National Limerick Day.  So, at her suggestion, let’s put these two things together…

Christy’s idea is great!
Since I did not anticipate
That the twelfth of May
Would be Limerick Day!
So a birthday poem I’ll create…

*ahem*

Happy Birthday to my dear old Dad!
(One of many birthday’s he’s had!)
Despite what you’re told
He’ll never grow old
At heart he’ll e’er be a young lad!

(And yes, I know he’ll get me back next week…)

The NHL regular season wrapped up yesterday, and you know what that means…

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are here!
My favorite time of the year!
“Let’s Go Flyers!!!”
“Let’s Go Flyers!!!”
Is all that you will hear me cheer!

UPDATE (May 7):  Yeah, that didn’t go so well.  We barely managed to squeak by Buffalo in 7 games, only to be swept by Boston in the 2nd round.  Ouch.  The team will have a long offseason to think about what went wrong and how to fix it to try again next year…

We’ve had a nice few weeks lately, with lots of sunshine and the temperature getting up close to 70!  But this week it feels like winter again.  The cold is back, the wind is back, and it looks like there’s even a chance the snow might come back!  What is going on?  I’m ready for spring!

Why is there snow in the forecast?
It seemed as though winter had passed
Instead it is cold
It’s getting quite old
And I hope that it will not last

In a pretty amazing surprise from my wife, I got to fly a plane yesterday!  She just told me “don’t make any plans for Sunday,” so I had absolutely no idea what was going on until we pulled up to a small local airport.  This airport functions primarily as a flight school and she had bought an “introductory flight” for me on Groupon.  So I got to spend about an hour buzzing around near the Chesapeake Bay in a little Cessna 172.  The instructor obviously did the takeoff and landing parts, and most of the flying, but he let me take the controls a good bit to get a feel for it.  I was surprised at how sensitive the controls were!  It takes very little effort to make the plane turn, climb, or just cruise along, so you can just relax and enjoy the view.  It was awesome.  And absolutely gorgeous weather for it, too.  It was just something she thought I would enjoy, and she was right.  It’s greatly increased my temptation to take lessons and get a pilot’s license.  But I might need to back off on a few of my other zillion hobbies and activities first…

Plenty of chores to do around the house this weekend!

I have tax returns to prepare
And a washing machine to repair
It seems the lid switch
Has suffered a glitch
On Amazon I found a spare

It’s that time of year.  See that fine layer of yellow dust covering everything?  Yup.  It’s tree pollen season.

The pollen from yonder fir trees
Causes me to sniffle and sneeze
Not much I can do
It isn’t the flu
Just my seasonal allergies

Okay, I had way too much fun writing all of those limericks yesterday.  I’ve been thinking about them all morning and decided I don’t want to wait a whole year for St. Patrick’s Day to come around so I can do it again.  So I’m going to see if I can keep it going!  I’m going to make it a new feature here, with its own category over on the sidebar.  They’re certainly not going to be every day, but we’ll see what happens!  To get started, some thoughts from my morning commute…

I wondered this morn on my drive
What poems today I’ll contrive
I could try haiku
They’re easy to do
Just write lines of five, seven, five

I had a little fun with St. Patrick’s Day yesterday and decided to write all of my Facebook posts in the form of limericks.  I didn’t think I’d come up with that many, but once I got going the ideas flowed much easier than I ever would have expected!  So they don’t drift down my Facebook wall over the next few weeks and eventually disappear to be forgotten forever, I wanted to put them up here.  Here’s how it all started:

To honor St. Patrick’s Day right
All day shall I limericks write
And then to the bar
It’s not very far
With my friends, cuz it’s trivia night!

Since it was Thursday, I had lecture that day for my grad classes, as well as a meeting with my advisor.

And now I will head off to class
The drive takes a gallon of gas
But first I’ll talk to
My advisor, Cadou
Grad school is a pain in the butt

It was also the first day of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, so when I got back to the office, the first games were just getting underway.

The basketball games have begun!
And soon we shall know who has won
So I’ll eat my lunch
And cross off a bunch
Of teams whom I picked but are done

And they were exciting ones!

Butler wins it just at the wire!
A last-second shot they did fire
Sorry, ODU
The refs did review
And saw that time did not expire

Probably the best part of all of these poems was that my friends got involved too!  Several people, my wife included, chimed in with their own limericks, responding to my poems and commenting on basketball.  Here are their poems:

Adam:

Your poetry work is fantastic
(And your syntax is rather gymnastic)
Here’s to the drinks!
…and puzzling, and thinks…
And fact-sharing enthusiastic.

Nate:

My colleagues must think me a fool
No team in, but I’m running our pool
But the drinks, they are free
While the cash comes to me
And my bracket will take ‘em to school!

Bob Huggins wears only tracksuits
In Morgantown hangs up his boots
He’ll cost you your bets
As he cuts down no nets
Cause his players all think he’s a fruit

Amy (after telling me in prose that her dad liked my Butler limerick):

As I hurried this story to tell,
I neglected to rhyme it up well.
Please accept, though belated
My comment restated:
My dad thought your poem was swell.

Shelley:

It’s a great St Patrick’s Day
Since I get to eat at Chick fil-A
Then back to get some work done
Which is not that much fun
But it helps that game stats are in the way

And I certainly appreciated their participation!

I thank you for your contributions
To my lyrical convolutions
Amused, I am quite
So I think I might
Make this a yearly institution

After work, as mentioned above, I went to the bar with my friends for trivia night and to watch more basketball.  So I was away from my computer for a while.  But when I got home, I couldn’t go to bed without one last poem…

And so, good friends, I go to bed
With Shepherd’s Pie I am well fed
A Guinness or two
Was had with it too
And the lim’ricks have gone from my head