The Baltimore Sun reports that the “Poe Toaster” who faithfully visited Poe’s grave every January 19th for 60 years failed to show up at midnight on January 19, 2010. He would arrive sometime between midnight and 5:30 a.m. and leave a bottle of cognac and three roses.
Jeff Jerome, the curator of the Edgar Allan Poe House in Baltimore, Maryland told the Baltimore Sun that there was nothing to make anyone think the toaster wasn’t coming this year. He said the man sometimes knelt at the tombstone or put his hands on it. Sometimes he would leave a note along with his other gifts.
As the ritual came to be known over the years, people would gather nearby to watch but would not disturb the Poe Toaster. A group of 30-50 people came this year but left disappointed. People speculated that the toaster was ill, or chose to stop coming after the bicentennial of Poe’s birthday last year (or perhaps the 60th year anniversary of his own visits).
Mr Jerome said he would continue to keep vigil each morning of January 19 until 2012. “After two years if he doesn’t show up, I think we can safely assume the tribute has ended,” he said.
I haven’t had a video for a little bit here and tomorrow is my birthday, so I was going to wait till then to put up a song by someone who shared my birthday. But out of all the singers with birthdays I saw, I really wanted to listen to Vikki Carr. Her birthday is today.
Vikki is looking and sounding incredible in this live performance from 1984. Vikki is a remarkable person not only for her singing talents, but she has long devoted her time and talents to helping many charities, like the United Way, the American Lung Association, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and St. Jude’s Hospital. In 1971, she established the Vikki Carr Scholarship Foundation, as a way to “personally return the support and encouragement she received from others in her own musical career.” Since then, the Foundation has awarded scholarships in excess of a quarter of a million dollars.
There are also Spanish and Italian versions of “It Must Be Him” on youtube performed by Vikki if you want to check that out.
I finally found the poem, St. Peter at the Gate (also known as Thirty Years with a Shrew), that I mentioned in this Sam Walter Foss post, that my grandfather used to recite, and it’s especially great that I found it today because it’s actually his birthday. He passed away in 1990, so perhaps he is celebrating and reciting it to St. Peter and the Archangel Gabriel today.
My grandfather knew a ton of poetry, and it would never cease to amaze me. I mean, he was not reading this from a book: he was reciting it from memory. What a trip! I can’t swear Grandpa said the whole thing, but what he did recite was pretty long, which didn’t bother me one bit. I loved it. For a long time, I thought the poem’s name had something to do with cucumbers. I never saw the poem in print myself until now and was only able to track it down thanks to my own ability to recall phrases of a poem long after I have heard it, a gift I obviously inherited from Grandpa.
I found it in google books in the Locomotive Engineers Journal (1895), the earliest instance of its publication I was able to find online. There are quite a few variations online but I always prefer a version from a printed source.
The author of the poem, as you will see if you click on the google book link, is Joseph Bert Smiley. but I’m telling you anyway, in case you don’t click on the link.
St. Peter At the Gate
St. Peter stood guard at the golden gate
With a solemn mien and air sedate.
When up to the top of the golden stair
A man and a woman ascending there,
Applied for admission, they came and stood
Before St. Peter, so great and good.
In hopes the City of Peace to win –
And asked St. Peter to let them in.
The woman was tall, and lank and thin,
With a scraggy beardlet upon her chin.
The man was short and thick and stout,
His stomach was built so it rounded out.
His face was pleasant and all the while
He wore a kindly and genial smile.
The choirs in the distance the echoes woke,
And the man kept still while the woman spoke: continued here
Yes, I know it’s Lord Byron’s birthday and I should talk about him to mitigate the egregious sin of not having any of his poems on the site proper, but I am in the process of rectifying that glaring omission this week.
For the nonce, let us look at poetry on England’s beloved Queen Victoria, who died for real on today’s date in 1901. There were two attempts to send her to an earlier grave by would-be assassins, one of whom, incredibly enough, was a poet! William Topaz McGonagall, a/k/a “The World’s Worst Poet”, immortalized that event in the following offering:
Attempted Assassination of the Queen
God prosper long our noble Queen,
And long may she reign!
Maclean he tried to shoot her,
But it was all in vain.
For God He turned the ball aside
Maclean aimed at her head;
And he felt very angry
Because he didn’t shoot her dead.
There’s a divinity that hedges a king,
And so it does seem,
And my opinion is, it has hedged
Our most gracious Queen.
Maclean must be a madman,
Which is obvious to be seen,
Or else he wouldn’t have tried to shoot
Our most beloved Queen.
Victoria is a good Queen,
Which all her subjects know,
And for that God has protected her
From all her deadly foes.
