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This Cowboy Jubilee is educational and fun
I suggest you don't go home
until all is said and done.
Most of you don't know me, that's cause we
ain't met.
So I'll introduce myself. We could be friends, I bet.
My
name is Jesse Chisholm, of the Old Chisholm Trail.
I'm telling you straight
partner, this is no tall tale.
My three-greats grand-daddy, for whom I
am named,
Is the original Jesse Chisholm that gave the trail fame.
He
was a business man, a diplomat, a peace maker all around.
Me, I'm lucky to
keep my feet on the ground.
Awhile ago, they asked for poems that stood
the test of time,
If I may I'll share with you a favorite of mine.
I
can't tell you who wrote it, the book didn't say,
But it was written
fifty-six years ago today
By a cowboy who found himself in a field in
France.
He had joined the Army for patriotism, courage, and romance.
On
this day his buddy asked, "When will this war end?"
The cowboy
thought a bit, and said, "I'll tell you straight, my friend:"
Absolute knowledge have I none,
But my wife's washer-woman's
sister's son
Heard a policeman on his beat
Say to a laborer in the
street
That he'd gotten a letter just last week,
Written in the finest
kind of Greek,
From a Chinese cooley in Timbuktu
Who said that his folks
in Cuba knew
Of an Indian Chief in a Texas town
Who got it straight from
a circus clown
That someone or other in Borneo
Has a friend who is said
to know
Of a hunter who lives beside a lake
Whose mother-in-law will
undertake
To prove that her seventh husband's sister's niece
Has stated
in a written piece
That she has a son, who has a friend
Who knows when
this war is going to end.
Well, the butterflies in my stomach are doing cartwheels and such.
I've
enjoyed being up here, thank you very much. |
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