The MUPs have brought great delight to us all . I was inspired by the first wave of entries to celebrate my wonderful wandering friends with a poem. Here is my Ode to the Palmtoppers, loving dedicated to all the folks around the Fireside.
Give me a moment, I'll tell you a tale
Of the Palmtoppers' travels, relayed by E-Mail;
By planes, trains and subways, by balloons and by cars
They sink to the depths and they shoot for the stars,
While some, more conservative, write from a chair,
But being Palmtoppers, you never know where!
Since they all were so willing to be in my file
Of Unusual Places, let's read for awhile:
Avi goes walking in sunshine and rain
To exercise legs and both sides of his brain;
He reads and he writes as he walks through the night;
He never has fallen, but I think he might!
One morning he wrote me from his Barber's chair,
A note to say someone was cutting his hair;
He also informed me, by post-script, quite soon,
That he once sent a note from a hot-air balloon;
One day, from above, in the far Friendly Skies
Came a message from Gary, who after some tries,
Had connected to CompuServe on an Airfone
And so far that honor is his, all alone.
Speaking of honors, we have to count Gilles
As a winner for numbers of Palmtopping miles:
He has traveled both coasts in our country you see,
And his messages come both by land and by sea:
From a Whalewatching Boat near Vancouver, West Coast
And from Prince Edward's Light, on the "other," Best Coast!
He travels so fast and he travels so far
That I think he has seats on his own shooting star!
To my horror I see that while Dara is driving
He reads and he writes, and though he's still surviving,
I think that he'd better beware of such mail,
Lest we next get a note from a Florida jail!
Now we look to the distance, where Daniel resides:
In France, in a fine ancient cottage he hides,
But he writes to his friends, the whole bunch of us,
From there, and from Paris, one time, on a Bus!
Now away to New Jersey, lets visit with Stan
If you want true variety, he is your man!
I heard from the deck of a New York bound Ferry,
On the way to a Roundtable; nervous? Yes, very!
The next little bon mot was sent from the table
At Expo; I do not know how he was able
To write while he answered those questions, and told
All the folks how LX's are better than gold!
If you thought that was clever, just wait, there is more:
He writes from the beach on the New Jersey shore,
And to prove my main point, that this fellow's a wag,
He is writing, he says, through a small plastic bag!
He claims that his kids like to bury him deep
In the sand, where he peacefully falls off to sleep,
But my favorite of all is the way that he tries,
With the kids, to catch bottles of bright fireflies!
Now here is the Palmtoppers' own Underground,
Where two of our friends, Steve and Tim, can be found;
Steve is in Manhattan, commuting, says he;
And Tim is in Hong Kong, and writing to me!
From the air over Russia: this must be a fad,
For two different notes from a plane I have had:
One written by Karim, the other from Drew,
Both mailed from the ground, but I think they will do!
And here is a wonderful bit of good news:
The new little daughter at Susan and Drew's;
From China, she flew to her new Denver home
No doubt she'll send e-mail when she starts to roam!
If you find any errors, blame them on my sense
Of freedom, expressed with a Poetic License;
If this does not please you, that's fine and O.K.,
Just write your own poem and send it our way!
Linda Worthington
E-mail: 74452.105@compuserve.com