Saturday, November 23, 2013

Then nothing more to say

Nature's first youth so bold
Her slice of time he can not hold
His thousand dreams bloom, flower
Tho' his chance, a single hour
Then lief hardens to stone
Then flesh fades to bone
Then twilight fades away
Then nothing more can stay

Monday, July 01, 2013

Two turns to three ain't bad

Baby now you walk all right
And that's getting you everywhere
I hold you every time I possibly can
but you're alway running off aside from near

And maybe you still cry all night
But that'll never change your bedtime
The no is really piling up inside
I wish you would just sleep dear

I poured the milk you poured it out
I tried to show you just how much I care
I'm tired of words and I'm too hoarse to shout
But you've been two so very long
Why can't you listen with your ears

And all I can do is keep on telling you
Be good
Be you
But there ain't no way
I'm ever gonna let you
Get away with bad
Though two turns to three ain't bad
Now don't be bad
Though two turns to three ain't bad

May you always find the sun on a sandy beach
May you always find your friends on the city street
I know you're looking for an answer
In a mountain of new
But there ain't the love you want
Takin' things from what your sister's got

Don't lie
Don't make up explanation that's not
No matter how you try
Your parents will know the truth
When your story is rot

There's one little boy that I always will love
And that started three years ago
And I know I'll never get him out of my heart
He loves me too, ooh I know
I remember how he showed up on a stormy night
Before the fourth of July at the sunny break of day
And everyone loved his beautiful smile
We're all thrilled that he came to stay

And he kept on telling us
He kept on telling us
He kept on telling us
He wants us
He needs us
And every way
He's always gonna love us
And we're so glad
Now two turns to three ain't bad
We're so glad
Now two turns to three ain't bad

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Nescio quod facio

I think I've finally found my family motto: NESCIO QVOD FACIO

Saturday, February 09, 2013

Founding father trivia - Dolly Madison Slave-Dealer

Founding father trivia - Dolly Madison Slave-Dealer
"We wish we had not heard it."

The North Star

Friday, April 14, 1848
Mrs. Madison A Slave Dealer

The Albany Patriot contains a letter from its Washington Correspondent, relating certain facts concerning Mrs. Madison and her slaves which have occasioned us more pain and shame than any other narrative of horrors that has yet reached up from the pandemonium of Southern Slavery. The facts are not all without parallels, familiar and frequent, but the person implicated is one whom it is terrible to regard with the feelings which her conduct challenges. Mrs Madison is above eighty years of age, the widow of one of our most honored Presidents, and herself, we have been glad to believe, worthy of all the love and reverence which it does the heart so much good to render to those in whom the most glorious associations of our country center.

Three years ago she sold an old slave, who had been nurtured on Mr. Madison's farm, and had been his barber and dressing-man for a quarter of a century. He was purchased by a Northern Senator to save him from the cotton field, and is now working out the price of his freedom with his own hands. "Among other slaves," the writer says, "she owned a mother 50 odd years of age, and her daughter of fifteen. About three months ago, the old lady called this girl into the parlor one day, nominally to bring her some water, but really to show her to a Georgian as the colored people call the slave-drivers. The girl was quick on the scent, and at a glance perceived that she was to be sold. Her mistress, Mrs. Madison, agreed with the purchaser to send the unprotected child to the pump, at a certain hour on a day fixed upon, when he could conveniently seize and carry her off. The girl embraced an early opportunity to retire behind the scenes, and has not made her appearance on the stage since.

Immediately after this event, Mrs. Madison, either piqued a little at the loss of the daughter, or from her necessities, offered the mother for sale.--By great good luck she found a family in the city in want of a colored woman like herself. The price was paid to her mistress, and she is now at work with the prospect of freedom sometime. The reason assigned for Mrs. Madison's conduct in these cases is, that poverty and want forced it upon her."

Mr. Madison, it is said, left a good estate, including one hundred slaves. Mrs. Madison received $20,000 a few years ago from Congress, for her husband's manuscripts, and is now boring for $20,000 more for the balance of those same papers. Mrs. Madison is herself a mother, (by her first marriage,) and no degree of want that she could possibly suffer could tempt her, if she has a heart, to sell another's child away into Southern bondage. It was unmotherly, it was unwomanly, it was brutal to barter away the maiden virtue of that poor child; and it would have disgraced her widowhood no more to sell her husband's dead body to the surgeons, than this old barber to the soul-driver. His horse or dog would be treated with more tenderness by any washerwoman with an American heart in her, than this body-servant received from his wife. Out upon her--it would degrade our manhood to respect her if she were our own mother. Can it be true? Mrs. Madison a dealer in human flesh--a broker of maidenhood! "We wish we had not heard it."

http://www.libraryweb.org/~digitized/newspapers/north_star/vol.I.pdf