Tuesday
The post I was writing for today has fallen apart rather late in the day so, as a last minute measure, I share a very witty parody—written by my father—of Rudyard Kipling’s “Gunga Din.”
The original poem, while it has a wonderful rhythm, is somewhat problematic. It’s about a British soldier realizing, somewhat patronizingly and sentimentally, that the regimental water boy is a worthy man in his own right. You can read the whole poem at Poetry Foundation but here’s enough of it to set up the parody:
You may talk o’ gin and beer
When you’re quartered safe out ’ere,
An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it.
Now in Injia’s sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin’ of ’Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din,
He was ‘Din! Din! Din!
‘You limpin’ lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din!
‘Hi! Slippy hitherao
‘Water, get it! Panee lao,
‘You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.’
And here’s the last stanza, where Gunga Din is killed while bringing water to the speaker, who has himself been shot:
E carried me away
To where a dooli lay,
An’ a bullet come an’ drilled the beggar clean.
’E put me safe inside,
An’ just before ’e died,
‘I ’ope you liked your drink,’ sez Gunga Din.
So I’ll meet ’im later on
At the place where ’e is gone—
Where it’s always double drill and no canteen.
’E’ll be squattin’ on the coals
Givin’ drink to poor damned souls,
An’ I’ll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
Yes, Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,
By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
My father’s poem was written in a place and at a time where illegal Appalachian moonshine was the only alcohol one could buy locally, Franklin County, Tennessee being a dry county in the 1950s and 1960s. To meet the inevitable demand, some converted their bathtubs into stills, just as today the same kinds of people have turned their bathtubs into meth factories. Here’s the poem:
The Ballad of Bathtub Gin
By Scott Bates
You may talk of Scotch an Rye
When you’re drink’ on the sly
An’ you feel you ain’t got nothin’ much to lose;
But when it comes to liquor
You’ll never get there quicker
Than on good ol’-fashioned rotgut, homemade booze!
Now in Frisco’s foggy clime
Where I used to spend my time
Indulgin’ in the gentle arts of sin,
Of all the local brew
The most potent stuff I knew
Was that belly-bustin’ beverage, bathtub gin!
Refrain
It was gin! gin! gin!
You super-saturated Mickey Finn!
Hey, gimme another slug!
Wipe the sawdust off the plug!
Takes the ring right off the bathtub, bathtub gin!
But they carried me away
To where a jacket lay,
A double-vested job with strings to lace ’er;
An’ when they got me tied
I ’eard ’em say aside,
“ ‘E should’ve taken Draino for a chaser!”
So now I’m getting’ bored
In the Alcoholic Ward
An’ I’m getting’ tired o’ watchin’ my D.T.’s;
But when they treats me rude
I just dreams o’ getting’ stewed,
An’ they can give me trouble all they please!
So it’s gin! gin! gin!
Though they put me in this moldy storage bin,
I know that when I die,
I’ll be really ridin’ high
’Cause I’ll get a swig in Hell of bathtub gin!
–Yes, it’s gin! gin! gin!
What a pandemonic pickle I’ll be in!
By the devils that distill you
And the poor damned souls that swill you,
You’re the hottest hooch in Hades, bathtub gin!
Did you have fun? I pick up some rebellion in the poem: my father came from a teetotalling family—his grandfather moved to Evanston, IL because it was home to the national headquarters of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union—and the most I ever saw my grandmother stray was a dash of brandy in the Christmas pudding once a year. They were scandalized when my father, their darling youngest son, returned from World War II drinking, smoking and (maybe worst of all) having voted for Roosevelt.
I’m not sure why my father sets the poem in San Francisco—maybe because it scans better—since the fog he refers to applies equally well to Sewanee, Tennessee. In any event, moonshiners were local celebrities when I was growing up.
Not that my father partook. The stuff, after all, could render one blind. He drove to Chattanooga to get the beer and wine, which was all he ever drank. In his poem, however, he gets into the spirit of the illicit manufacture of “good ol’ fashioned rotgut, homemade booze.”
Further note: Franklin County is no longer dry so now enterprising souls have switched from moonshine to the far more harmful meth. In fact, we are now known as “Meth Mountain,” and a dentist friend, who runs a free dental clinic on Tuesdays, says he spends pretty much all his time pulling meth teeth.
Yikes, that’s a downer way to end today’s post.