All hints are in the comments!

Thursday, October 4, 2018

Oct. 4, 2018

|| burro, asked, aspect, rhythm, stay the course.

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13 comments:

OwenKL said...

There's a legend here in Santa Fe, how our street grid was laid out.
It starts with Pedro, a burro, back in sixteen hundred or thereabout.
Pedro was a wayward donkey, who could never stay on the course.
For an aspect of shear cussed orneriness, Pedro outdid any horse!

As one might expect, a creature so contumacious had his ways.
He carried burdens, as he must, but preferred minding his own days.
For Pedro simply was a lush, there's no better way to say it.
When rotten fruit fermented, Pedro indulged till he'd had a surfeit!

The Alcalde of young Santa Fe, observing the rhythm of its commerce
Decided the main trail and plaza need expand to reach its promise.
So he asked two idle trail-hands to lay out some avenues and streets,
Which they did by following Pedro, the wandering drunken beast!

Misty said...

Fun poem, Owen, with some cool words ("contumacious", e.g.) Got all four Jumble items in your production, but no clue to the solution, which still eludes me. I'm guessing the construction will be _ _ _ _ her _ _ _ _ _ _, but can't figure out what she has to do to improve her game. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Sandyanon said...

Misty, that's the dead end road I went down as well. Throw "her" away quick!!

Sandyanon said...

Actually the solution came pretty quickly -- after I discarded "her" as the middle word, of course. I stayed with that idea far too long, and only gave it up reluctantly.

I've never visited Santa Fe; are the streets really that random? (That mayor doesn't seem to have been very smart in his staff picks, does he? Lol.)

Ol' Man Keith said...

Didn't start with "her," and so realized the carry-on nautical injunction fairly quickly.
Don't be distracted, Misty; hold the wheel steady and stick to the go-ahead destination!

OwenKL said...

I usually try to put the solution in the last verse, but reversed that today.

Sandyanon said...

Noticed that. But it fit in well with the rhythmic aspects of the tale.

Wilbur Charles said...

First, not to be contumacious, I posted my expliquez at the end of Wed.

I had the four words and finally got the riddle but I was missing Y. Aha. I couldn't spell #4 .

Misty. They're playing Golf . Where ?

WC

Misty said...

Owen, thanks for letting me know where to look for the solution in your poem--I finally got it! Yay!
Oh, thanks, Wilbur--I finally got your hint too: on a golf course, of course!

Sandyanon said...

Here's something I posted on the Corner, forgetting that it actually was from this blog. It's after 9pm, so . ...

I got interested in the provenance of "stay the course", as mentioned today. One explanation I found was that, as early as 1885, it was said to refer to race horses staying til the end of a race. Another talks about its use in politics, dating from 1980 with Reagan, and links it to sailing terminology.

What I found the most fascinating, though, was its use as far back as the 16th century with an opposite type of meaning, where "stay" was a synonym of "stop", so that the phrase meant to interrupt the progress of something.

Idioms and the history of how they come about are so interesting,
though explanations are seldom certain.

OwenKL said...

Thank you for the insight!

Mike Sherline said...

Stay, as in - fear of retribution stayed his hand.

Mike Sherline said...

Don't think it would ever be used with the course in that sense.