Trumbull – Friends, Roamers and Countrymen (4) Grandpa’s Birthday Poem – September 10, 1944

I thought I had scheduled this for Friday, the 12th, but I have just discovered that I didn’t.

Grandpa always believed it was better to give rather than receive, so every year on his birthday, he presented his children with gifts to commemorate HIS birthday. This year, he wrote a poem about this practice.

September 11, 1944

YADHTRIB

This is a topsy-turvy world

As most folks will agree

The up-side-down-ness of it all

Has much affected me

And Lad, who braves S. A.’s hot belt

And liked it hot and dusty

Now finds old Flora’s torrid heat

Makes him feel short and crusty

And Dan, who recently declared

Amid the big guns boom

From his own individual view

The war may end too soon

And Ced, too, finds things all awry

Up where the salmon run

He says he often can and

Does read by the midnight sun

Of course there’s Dick and Dave and Biss

Who are topsy-turvy too

But why go on and show them up

When all I want to do

Is show “how come” I get this way

And prove some still believe

At birthday time it is more fun

To give than to receive

So on this bright “September morn”

I send these trinkets few

And nudely say I’m glad to know

That I belong to you.

In pencil, Grandpa has circled “trinkets few” and made a note: Coming to you under separate cover. ADG

Tomorrow I will post the last out-of-order letter from Dave from Okinawa. 

Judy Guion