Well, if the 24th of this month means we’re heading out of it, I hardly think it’s very lamb-like. I guess with all this climate change biz, you poets had better get busy creating new words to live by. The old standbys aren’t working any more.
Like many proverbs for the month of March, ” In like a lion, Out like a lamb” can be traced back to Thomas Fuller’s 1732 compendium, Gnomologia; Adagies and Proverbs; Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) was a British physician, preacher and intellectual. In addition to his compilation of proverbs, he published two medical books and famously said, “Be you never so high, the law is above you.”
I do believe we’ve lost sight of more than the lamb and the lion, Dr. Fuller! I wonder how you would improve your Gnomologia if you could have a stab at it today?
Yesterday, at last, I dove into my new book — or at least I’m hoping that it will come together in book form eventually, as planned. The subject? People! Working title: “Saints or Sinners?”
And those are about the only hints I’m willing to give just yet. Because, like so many grand schemes and ideas, this one could easily go bust. I will say this, though: I’m not confining my subjects to the denizens of Oysterville or even to the Peninsula — not yet. Never mind if they’ve been written about before — gathering bits and pieces of information, putting stories in new contexts, adding tales that were never told in print form — that’s the challenge. And, if you have a favorite local character — historic or otherwise — that you think would make a good subject, send me an email and let’s “talk.”
