I
haven’t been able to post to my blog for a while because the iWeb file
had gotten corrupted and I had to copy everything from it to a word
processing program and then back to a new iWeb template. I thought the
old stuff was still up, so I was waiting till I got everything re-done
before I posted so as not to erase the old stuff. But I hear the blog is
now just a template in fake Latin, sorry about that, so now I’m posting
what I’ve done so far of the old stuff and adding what I wrote from my
January trip to Montana. Here’s the first part of that:
I’m
sitting in Judy Fjell’s guest cottage, looking out across the
Yellowstone river and bare trees and tan hills to the snow-covered Crazy
Mountains. I’m here in Big Timber, Montana, to work with Judy on a new
CD for children, but I get to drink in the gorgeous scenery too. I’ve
been here a week, a week that started out cloudy but all that’s blown
away and the mountains are sharp against a few wispy clouds in a
winter-blue sky. My part of the cottage is a little ways down the slope
to the river, so the trains that run along the other side of the street
aren’t loud enough to disturb my sleep, but I hear the wind most of the
time. Judy says she sees whole trains dedicated to one cargo—coal
sometimes, or often corn syrup. The idea of a whole train dedicated to
corn syrup got my attention, and I wrote some lyrics (not for the CD)
about it. I have read that the rise in diabetes coincides with the
introduction of high fructose corn syrup. Judy loaned me a keyboard so I
could write a tune.
THE CORN SYRUP SPECIAL
The Corn Syrup Special is rollin’ ’cross the plains
Heading for some place along the coast,
Where it will meet some berries and plums on other trains
To make the jam that’s yummy to put atop your toast.
Oh, hear that whistle blow
It sounds so fine
And it’s time to blow the whistle
On that corn syrup line.
High fructose corn syrup coming down the track,
On its own train of red tanker cars
If sugar were cocaine, this syrup would be crack
A faster high than sugar when you eat your candy bars.
Corn syrup’s cheaper cause the government pays
Farmers extra when they have a bigger crop
But your candy isn’t cheaper, it’s the profits get a raise
And they sell you on a bigger can of corn syrup pop.
Corn syrup’s cheaper but it’s harder on yourself
It’s in the soup, it’s not just in the pies
So it’s good to read the labels on the supermarket shelf
If you want something cheaper, try the smaller size.
© 2009 by Nancy Schimmel
We
realized before I came up here that we had enough songs we wanted to
record to fill three CDs, and we’ve spent some time figuring out how to
divide them up and which CD to start on. They seem to divide into songs
of empowerment (which we’ll do first), songs of the West (which was our
original idea before it got out of hand), and songs of farming and
gardening.
On
Tuesday I went with Judy to the two rural one-room schools where she
teaches music weekly, and she led the kids in three songs we have
written together, which happen to fit one each on the three CDs. “I
Think of a Dragon” (about standing up to bullies) will be on the
empowerment one, “Montana, Colorado, Nevada” (about all the Spanish
words in cowboy lingo) will be on the Western one, and “Every Third
Bite” (“for every third bite you eat, thank the bees”) will be on the
one about farming and gardening. In the afternoon we went to an
after-school program she visits once a week here in town, and Wednesday
to a two room school. Judy told me that before Christmas one of the boys
there showed her the dragons he had drawn and hung around the edges of
his desk for protection. She said, “Do I have a song for you!” And all
the kids love to sing it. I enjoyed telling “Elk and Wren” to kids who
have seen elk.
©2009 by Nancy Schimmel
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
