I Want This On My Tombstone
05/16/2021
However, I did try.
--St. Katherine Drexel
I've taken it out of context--the sentence doesn't actually end there. And I'm not 100% certain that it was St K.D. It was in one of the daily meditations in a fairly recent Magnificat, maybe in March. I'm pretty sure I wrote it down, with attribution, somewhere, and now I can't find it. But in any case it sure fits.
The last verse of Silly Wizard's song "The Rambling Rover":
If you're bent wi' arthiritis,
Your bowels have got colitis,
You've gallopin' bollockitis
And you're thinkin' it's time you died,
If you've been a man o' action,
Though you're lying there in traction,
You may gain some satisfaction
Thinkin', "Jesus, at least I tried."
Posted by: Rob G | 05/17/2021 at 06:03 AM
“Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Yoda.
Whatever that means.
Posted by: Robert Gotcher | 05/17/2021 at 09:14 AM
Take George Lucas faux-zen seriously, do not.
"bollockitis" sounds like really bad news. I don't think I've never heard Silly Wizard.
Posted by: Mac | 05/17/2021 at 10:36 AM
Scottish traditional folk band, active in the 70s and 80s. They did a mix of traditional and original songs.
The chorus of the song goes,
There are sober men a'plenty
And drunkards barely twenty
There are men of over ninety
Who have never yet kissed a girl.
But gi' me a ramblin' rover
Frae Orkney down to Dover
We will roam the country over
And together we'll face the world!
Posted by: Rob G | 05/17/2021 at 11:08 AM
Yeah, I had a vague idea that they were in the Fairport/Steeleye vein.
Posted by: Mac | 05/17/2021 at 01:39 PM
They were more traditional than Fairport or Steeleye -- didn't have any of the rock element -- but not as trad as the Chieftains, say. Their claims to fame were a very good singer, Andy M. Stewart, and the Cunningham brothers, Johnny and Phil, two phenomenal instrumentalists. Stewart did a solo record which is a collection of Robert Burns songs, and after many years it's still a favorite folk record of mine. If memory serves I may have even written a review of it for the defunct folk music mag Porthole.
Posted by: Rob G | 05/18/2021 at 05:50 AM