Number 308: Anonymous "Thank God For Dirty Dishes"

Thank God For Dirty Dishes

Thank God for dirty dishes

They have a tale to tell

While other folks go hungry

We’re eating very well.

With home and health and happiness

We shouldn’t want to fuss

For by this stack of evidence

God’s been very good to us.

-- Anonymous

Hap Notes: Thought this was apropos for the day. For years I thought my Grandpa, Frank Mansfield, wrote this. He said he did. He could recite it and did at almost every meal. He even had it written down in his own beautiful cursive hand-writing on a piece of paper, framed and hung by the sink. I truly believed he wrote the poem until I ran into a woman from Peoria, IL (just across the river from Pekin, where I was born) who claimed that HER grandfather wrote the poem. Hmmm. Must be something about that area that breeds tale-tellers.

My grandpa also told me he was married to a Navajo princess (he owned a gas station in New Mexico at one time) and that a blanket I often napped with was a gift from her people. My grandma responded to this with, "Franklin Mansfield! You know I crocheted that blanket!"

He also told me that he hated coconut because of his days as a hobo. According to him, he and a bunch of his hobo companions, once raided a box car full of coconuts while the train was stationed close to a hobo junction. He said they all ate so much coconut he couldn't look at the stuff without getting sick. I still believe that one.

I am so very full of thankfulness today that I feel like Millay in yesterday's poem. One of the many reason I am thankful is due your kind attention to this blog. So, many many thanks to you.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

By the way, another fine poem to consider today is Charles Causley's "Timothy Winters" which we have already covered here: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/06/number-191-another-charles-causley.html