A little giggle

Every year since I was 6, I have been going to a festival in Oregon, where I am from. My parents were fun loving hippies, who am I kidding my dad still is, and for one weekend out of the each year I got to be one too. This place that I go to has always been my happy place. It is magical, still, even though I'm now 30 years old. I will have to write a whole post on this place sometime, but for now I have a poem that one of my fellow fair goers taught me when I was a teenager.

I was organizing our spare room into a craft/storage room and I found this little gem. I had it committed to memory at one time, but have since forgotten some of it. It was in the bottom of a box, transcribed on a typewriter(does anyone have one of those anymore???), on a aged piece of paper. It cracks me up to this day.

A hermit once lived in a hut on a hill.

No legend or myth is this tale that I tell

for my dear daddy said that he knew him quite well,

this hermit.

*

He lived all alone by the shores of a lake.

Concoctions of herbs for his health he would make.

Of nothing but fish would the good man partake,

on Fridays.

*

To the inquisitive public his portals he closed.

Once yearly he'd bathe both his body and clothes.

How the lake ever stood it a fish only knows,

and he won't tell.

*

One morning he rose all dripping and wet

and his horrified vision two fair maidens met.

At the feminine business he was not a vet,

so he blushed.

*

He grabbed for his hat which lay on the beach

to cover as much as its broad brim would reach

and he yelled to the girls in a horrified screech,

"Go Away Now!"

*

The fair maidens laughed at his terrible plight

and begged him to show them the wondrous sight

but he clung to his hat with all of his might,

to hide it.

*

Just at that moment a villainous gnat

made the hermit forgetful of where he was at.

He let go the hat to bat at the gnat.

Oh horrors!

*

And now we have come to the nub of this tale.

First he turned red and then he turned pale.

He uttered a prayer for prayers never fail,

so 'tis said.

*

Of the truth of this tale there's no doubt at all.

Some angel heard and answered his call.

Though he let go the hat the hat did not fall.

It's a MIRACLE!