Up the Wazzoo - Again
Up the Wazzoo - Again
A while back in time I put forth the story about the Wazzoo, the national bird of the mythical Kingdom of Nepal. Of course, as in most of my recitations, that story had about as much truth and accuracy in it as does the eternal bragging of the stout boss in North Korea - the one who gets rid of uncles and girl friends he no longer likes by shooting them to pieces with great big anti-aircraft cannons.
However lacking might be the veracity of my Wazzoo tales, these stories are semi-plagiaristic because they are patterned after the famous works of the master of poesy and story telling, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He's the guy who wrote about Hiawatha and his tribals and about that village blacksmith with the huge hands who kept shop beneath a monumentally large chestnut tree.
When Longfellow wrote, people read.
Some background
A little bit of background concerning the Wazzoo bird -
I understand that the word, "wazzoo," has certain impolite meanings among the hoi polloi. However, it is thought of with both affection and reverence (of a sort) in the mythical Kingdom of Nepal and other storied lands nearby the Himalayan Mountains. It is on the reverential definitions that my thoughts are centered as I compose this addendum to the earlier Wazzoo tale.
In the event of a palpable demand for the original story, I will append it to this one bye-and-bye. Here we go with "Version II."
* * * * *
Up the Wazzoo - II
In frigid air above the mountains,
cold beyond belief of man,
was snow and ice and wind of madness,
and Wazzoo, rising, flying there.
Wazzoo ever circling higher,
searched among the snow-clad slopes.
Searched the slopes, all-seeing ever.
Searched the icy, snowy vast.
Up went Wazzoo, through the snow clouds.
Wings of strength now getting weary,
feathers freezing in winds rising,
rising up above the mountains.
Thought the Wazzoo as he flew there,
"Man says mountains are for climbing,"
"not over-flying as I hear,
hear the shouting, 'Up the Wazzoo'"
"This cold and ever-blowing air
warms not a single frozen feather,
eases not an aching muscle,
stiff from icy, blowing snow."
And so it was that Wazzoo circled
high above the snow-strewn mountains,
wishing only for green valleys,
trees, and flowers there to see.
Rest was not to be for Wazzoo.
Soaring over snow-clad slopes.
His fate and life so aptly charted,
ever from the shouts below -
"Up the Wazzoo."
* * * * *
My thanks to our friend Henry W. for his metered inspiration and to the slangsters of the Bronx for preserving the name, The Wazzoo. For those of you who have always wanted to see a photograph of a live Wazzoo, (and I was one of those people) we are all fortunate that a Nepalese native from the mythical Kingdom of (guess where) Nepal made a snapshot of the renowned Wazzoo in between the native's Mt. Everest climbs. He donated the snapshot to that wonderful repository of public domain images, Pixabay.com. Thus we could use it as the lead image for this Hub
