In 1958 our senior class held the last black face minstrel show in the south. Blacks were still required to sit in a different part of the theatre than whites, two water fountains and all that.

My grandfather had appeared in a minstrel show around 1917 so he volunteered to teach me two poems. (my aplogies to anyone of color or different nationality)

Absolute Knowledge

Absolute Knowledge I have none
But my aunts brothers sisters son

met a policemen on his beat
who received a letter just last week
written in the finest Greek

From a Chinese coolie in Timbucktu
who said the niggers in Cuba knew
of a colored man in a Texas town
who got it straight from a circus clown

That a man from the Klondike got the news
From a gang of South American Jews

That a man from Borneo claimed to know
of a swell female society rake
whose mother in law will undertake to prove

that her seventh husbands sisters niece
has stated in a printed piece
that she has a son who has a friend
who knows when this wars goin to end.

It was Late in December

It was late in December
as well as I can remember
I was walking down the street
In gay and middling pride

My head grew all aflutter
So I lay down in the Gutter
And a Pig came along and lay down by my side

As I lay there in the gutter
With my noodle all a flutter
I heard two passing ladies sadly say

You can tell the one who boozes
by the company he chooses
And that damn pig got up and walked away

Just wanted to record for posterity (sp)

Bill Wheeler