A New Look At My Dad

Last night sister-in-law, Janie, called me looking for dates that are pertinent to our family history. She has misplaced her address book into which she has always recorded all important family information over the years, so she is frantically (if you could call anything that calm little Janie does as frantic) trying to make a new book. It is good that she is redoing the book, because the whole family ALWAYS calls Janie when in doubt of some statistic. She is a book-keeper-numbers kind of girl.

Anyway, today I ventured out to the storage to dig out all my mother and dad's papers that have been in the storage area since their deaths. I did manage to round up all the dates that Janie was wanting. (Now Don and I must try to organize all our records, too.) But, more importantly, I found a small envelope on which my mother had written "Mark's writing". Hm, I thought my mother was the writer. But, lo and behold, I have now discovered a new side of my father.

Most of the short writings (mostly poems) were religious in nature. My dad was a preacher's kid, and a choir director, so church and his faith were very important to
him. But I also found a very charming little poem that he had written to my mother on the occasion of their fifth wedding anniversary. I love it because it shows a side of my father that I rarely saw. I was, after all, the fifth child, born when my dad was in his forties. By then, having gone through a depression with little money, and having five children, he was always a pretty serious kind of guy. But, my mother must have loved his poem, too, for she had kept it safe the rest of her life.

So I here now publish my dad's charming little love poem to my mother on their fifth (wooden) anniversary on June 12, 1932. They were already parents of two sons.

ODE TO A COUPLE OF SPROUTS

For the first five years of living as one,
If you and the years have been good,
Protocal states any gifts that are brought,
Shall be made of nothing but wood.

The reason for this has never been plain,
Some say there are two schools of thinking.
It could be some fruit has been picked from the tree,
Or the roots into good soil are sinking.

Be that as it may, you should still keep in mind,
As you're sipping it up from your bowl,
Things of wood are often devoured by fire,
So keep your flame of love under control.

The question of questions, as we celebrate,
Is not so much could you or couldn't you,
But, if the power were yours to turn back the years,
Be honest now, "wood" you or "wooden" you?

Then when our trunks are warped and our limbs are bent,
And no leaves on your branches are seen,
Look at the saplings from the seeds dropped,
And think kindly of the scrubs ever "Green."

by Mark Edward Green
for Gladys Green

I don't know about those flames of love being under control, the third son was born the next spring.