The Santa Ana Winds................................

Good one, Letty.

edgar, often a simple thank you is all that it takes to go on.

Thank you.

Letty: Your poem is beautiful. I think Gray might describe it best: "Thoughts that breathe, words that burn".

When I feel depressed I often read Sarah Teasdale's poem:

Barter
Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

Raggedy, You are a beautiful person. Sarah Teasdale cannot speak for you, for in your own right, your birth right. you have spoken for her.

Goodnight my dear friend.............................

From Florida

Santa Ana came to our town
Bragged how he brought the Alamo down
Didn't mention Sam Houston at all
He was selling chewing gum at a flea market stall

Heh,heh.

You are inscrutable,
Irrefutable,
potash and tungsten,
Copper and coal.
Texas T
And Jim Bowie.

Yeah, but ----Santa Ana really did go into the chewing gum business in his later life.

Well, edgar. I didn't know that. Wasn't there something about a boy who was credited with capturing Santa Anna? For a while, I thought Setanta was using Santana's moniker.

I just didn't have the heart to post the wild fires in Southern California in general news, so I just wrote a poem about it. Were the Santa Ana winds named after the Mexican general?

Think of this: The rallying cry: "Remember the Alamo" was followed with "Remember the Maine" then "Remember Pearl Harbor". ...nothing after that. Perhaps we ought to write a poem about "Remember Vietnam" for the inverse of what's happening now.

I don't know the origin of the name for the Santa Ana winds. I grew up in Fresno and Campbell California without ever hearing it referred to. And, even though I am a Texan, I did not study Texas history for that reason.
"54-40 or Fight" was a pretty strong slogan, also.
Perhaps a good modern one would be "Remember Florida."

"Remember Florida"

The hurricanes, the tornadoes,
The Miami Marlins,
The Palm trees, the snappers,
The swamps and the shark fins.
The ocean that sings with it's deep basso voice,
The place where I live
And the polls with no choice.
The traces of Spain,
The barrier isles,
There's no place on earth,
That is all sweets and smiles.

Take a peek at this:

http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/58january/santa.htm

Wow, Aggie. We were all right.


Wayward Wind
Gogi Grant

Words and Music by Stan Lebowsky and Herb Newman
# 8 song of the 1955-1959 rock era;
# 1 for 8 weeks in 1956

The wayward wind is a restless wind
A restless wind that yearns to wander
And he was born the next of kin
The next of kin to the wayward wind

In a lonely shack by a railroad track
He spent his younger days
And I guess the sound of the outward-bound
Made him a slave to his wand'rin ways

And the wayward wind is a restless wind
A restless wind that yearns to wander
And he was born the next of kin
The next of kin to the wayward wind

brief instrumental interlude

Oh I met him there in a border town
He vowed we'd never part
Though he tried his best to settle down
I'm now alone with a broken heart

And the wayward wind is a restless wind
A restless wind that yearns to wander
And he was born the next of kin
The next of kin to the wayward wind

The next of kin to the wayward wind

Gogi's one and only hit. It was also recorded by John Ritter's dad, Tex.

Tex Ritter. Good grief, edgar. And he also did the song for High Noon.

Now who did "Wild Fire"?

Michael Murphy. I thought he had such a pleasant voice. I have an album of other songs by him, but none ever became a hit.

Aggie, I looked up the lyrics, but it didn't give credit to Michael Murphy. The lyrics are lovely, though:

She comes down yellow mountain
on a dark flat land she rides
on a pony she named Wildfire
With a whirlwind by her side
on a cold Nebraska night

They say she died one winter
When there came a killing frost
And the pony she named Wildfire
Busted down his stall
In a blizzard he was lost

She ran calling Wild Fire
She ran calling Wild Fire
She ran calling Wild Fire.......

By the dark of the moon I planted
but they came an early snow
There's been a hoot owl howling at my window
for six nights in a row.
She's coming for me I know
and on Wild Fire we're both going to go,

She'll be riding Wild Fire
She'll be riding Wild Fire
going leave these troubles behind
get these hard times right on out of my mind
riding Wildfire...............
Wild Fire

Spooky, too, ain't it.



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I love that song. Larry Cansler wrote the words and Michael Murphey wrote the music in 1975. Geesh, I considered Wild Fire one of the newer songs. Stuck in a time warp!

Earth, wind, fire, and water, Aggie. There truly may be a fifth element.