Now take these shoulder-pins – whut holds my arms from droppin' off...
I gotta go kinda easy now... ..(Gotta' be keerful when I cough...!)
The X-rays shows 'em like "Railroad Spikes" – n', if'n that ain't enuff...
At 80 you see, reachin' overhead... it gits to be kinda tuff.



But don' waste time bein' sorry, fer a worthless ol'-time sinner...
Thet's just whut it takes, you see – if'n you plans to be ... a Winner!

I got arth-a-ritic elbow, boy... I got arthra-scopic knees...
From diggin' those Inyun bones-an'-stones (1) – and choppin' down big ol' trees
And my nose here got 'deviated septum' – whut makes me sneeze n' sneeze...
And so I ask you, son: You still wanna be... a Winner?

My man-di-bul is free of gaps...thanks due largely to Porse-linn caps
Mementos from a childhood race... (over the handlebars, right on my face...!)
When I got home, being there declared... "a real.... Dis-grace!"
"You can't go to West Point, ever now – and a wife you'll never place..."
But listen, son, I buried two... and on the third right now –
A redhead... 'n every day she's more ...off base...
An' thet's whut makes me... a Winner!

These teeth you see, aluz' dog-ged me – even back in the ETO...
Where a Field dentist, in drab O.D., replaced them once just so...
In a foot-treadle-chair 'neath German trees – right out there in the evenin' breeze
An' fer rebar he used some paper clips (which the Army is never without)
To hold the cement in place (for a whole durn day: I had to shut my mout'!
An' thet's whut makes me ...the Winner!

And I got "Morton's Toe" on both my feet: it ruins a runner's gait...
But a "sports doc" fixed ortho-pee-dics fer me – before it got too late
So I stuck them in my Nikes – and ran to embrace My Fate
In Summer's sun, and Winter's blast – and if'n I did'n place first, it sure warn't last
I warn't too slow and I warn't too fast – and they cheered the old guy when I ran past...
An' thet's whut makes me ...the Winner!

You gotta' speak loud when you speak to me, 'cause I kin hardly hear...
A 'sploshun in Infantry Basic – why, it went and ruin't my ear!
But mainly some nerves, the docs all said..."Just that hear the human voice..."
(My Mom, God Bless! Later said "...it's onliest his own sweet choice"...)
It's consonants you see, when you speak to me –
I kain't tell the diff'runce of "b" from "v"
or "m" from "n" or ...a ."t" from a "c"....
But when the call goes out every evenin', "Come n' git yore Dinner...
I'm first in line, you see ... And thet is whut makes me ...the Winner!

And more years passed – when a doctor said, as he looked with a light inside my head...
"Why, Sakes Alive! What you got here, is some growths a- growing in yore Middle Ear,
Of course, they interfere with your drum, and we all think they mostly come from....
Scuba in a cold, cold sea..."

"Why, Sakes Alive! And do you dive?"

True, all true... for I PADI-Certified (2) in an icy rip-tide
On a neap a- runnin' hard down Rhode Island's shoreside.
And later I dove on a coral reef, to sport with the fishes beyond my reach
In a bright lagoon off Tahiti's beach...
An' I've dived the Virgins... an ol' Cancun – an' I've even dived beneath the Moon
So Listen Up now, I ain't no beginner: The mow-rees (3) an' the sharks ain't had me fer dinner...
An' I've ducked the "bends" (4) n' other watery ends...
Makin' me... still the Winner!

Now this achin' back is the final act from fallings all helter-skelter...
Off cliffs and ledges in a lifetime spent...
Seeking a "Oc-cu-pied In-i-yun RockSHELTER!" (5)
An' this funny twist in my left wrist, comes from fallin' down some stairs
In ta' dark one night, 3 flights ya see – jest addin' to muh cares...
An oncet many years so long before, I cut an artery in thet arm
When I fell off'n a rock in a Cape Cod Pond – an' done myself some harm
Now this rock you see is where Fred Pohl (6) said to me
"Ta' Vikings landed long ago..."

But I fell right into some oyster shells - saw some stars and heard some bells
An' come up out'n the ooze and ta'mud, an my wrist ya see jest a spoutin' blood...
Jaybird naked, camera in hand (I had waded out from the nearest land)
So I shouted to my partner on the bluff so high...
"Bob! Whut to do, before I die?"

An I'll never forget on ta' evenin' breeze, how his call came back from beyon' ta' trees...
"Bernie! – it's the curse of your Viking Hunt (7) : if'n I were you, I think I'd... punt!"

(All around me then, ghostly Skraelings (8) roared, an' Thorfinn (9) rushed them with his sword –)
An' blood dripped down from the Follins rock (10) - And I decided to forego a case of shock –
...And waded slowly ashore... It was five o'clock.

An' when I walk Naomi says to me, thet I slump along like a Chimpanzee
With a distinct sorta hunch, and a splay-foot "waddle"...
And I know it's from bouncin' in my Civil War Saddle
A real McClellan (Lincoln's Gin'l, thet wouldn't fight (11) ,
But knew his horses and got it right
An' I rode Ol' Miss' 'crosst Redding Ridge (12) - all the way down to Little River Bridge
Ridin' mos' days on my chestnut mare,
(Way back then had wind in my hair...)

The Walter Mitty (13) of the Seventh Cavalry...
And thet's whut makes me...still a Winner!

So you see these baby blues, that's a sizin' you up ... Mac?
They sorta dimmed down a bit, you know - only a few years back...
An' doc said, "Pop! It's plain to me, Whut you all got is the cat-A-RACT!"

So I checked into Filokowski (14) - like an eyeball assembly line
They pop the old lens out and new one in – sorta tack-weld them to your eyeball's skin
And the very same day when you walk out – you ready to leap and toot your horn
For you can see as good as the day you'r born!
And thet keeps you bein'...a Winner!

I got lumbar twist and everted disc – from totin' scrap iron at my own sweet risk
An' heftin' my Peter Wright (15) , n' settin' it down, an' haulin' it here an 'all aroun'...
An' "strikin' and blowin'" at 'Vous (16) in the hills – where the Westfield (17) chuckles o'er rocky rills
An' maybe that's where my shoulders give out
When I tuk up smithin' and poundin' iron hot – ('cause I uster do it an awful lot)
An' ta Fleas-of-Hades (18) landed in my hair, and on my arms, where they were bare
But it beat the front porch and the Ol' Rocky' Chair...
Makin' me... the Winner!

An' there I emulated a trappers' life, with kindred souls who endured much strife
In woody glens where we gathered to Learn: fire without matches that would really burn
And many of the arts of days gone by when men were men 'neath an open sky
A Hawken's blast against your arm – well, maybe punched my shoulder, and did some harm...
Seventy-five grains of ol' Double FF (19) – Well...a buffler' gun's got to have some heft
A Hivereno (20) at last and ' an' Ol' Greybeard - whose council in the lodge was often heard
Around the campfire in the Berkshire night... Making me still a Winner – by a damn clear sight!

Now also shootin' pool with bent cue sticks ain't somethin' ya wants in yore bag o'tricks...
Pey-RONES (21) they calls it when it goes "off middle", even if ya still kin piddle,
Howsomever, them u-ROLOGISTS jest a pokin'a- roun', keeps it so's ya still kin diddle...

"N also...

fiddle...

'N stay a ...Winner!

In youth, of course, I affected to sail – an' put often forth in the howling gale
I heaved and pulled on many a sheet, on slanting decks 'neath tan bare feet
An' long years later in "Rose's" (22) gundeck, sportin' wid da Six-Pounders – What ta' Heck?
An' the derm-a-tol-ogist says thet all that sun, it sorta went and crimped the fun
Fer it gave me a case of ac-tin-ic kera-TOSES – which is a notch or two wors'est above halitosis
Little bitty bumps upon your skin - but not so's to notify yore next-o'-kin

An that means yore still...a Winner!

So fer a lifetime you see, which is largely misspent – ya' could sit aroun' I spose, and jes' repent
Shoulda' done this and shoulda' done that – an' "Please to put a penny in the old man's hat"
"You are old Father William, the young man said - And yet you incessantly stand on your head" (23)
But, fer me, ya see, it can kin truly be said, "It's more fun than the Black, to live in the Red..!
" 'Cause a long time ago I saw, you see.... you're just gonna be, jus like me ...a long time dead!

So first ya better be...a Winner!

##

FOOTNOTES