Beech Tree News Network

For all the sleepy heads out there in slumber land, including me I’m afraid; one guy describes the awful chore of arising: “There are mornings are mornings, especially Mondays, when I feel like the symptoms on a bottle of patent medicine and the world seems uphill in both directions.” 

Poets and philosophers of any stripe have been moved to compose stirring lines of praise to the coming of the dawn. One poet philosopher was heard to declare, “The very early morning; that period of all the calm and quiet and dew before even the rooster have found much to crow about, is an inspiring time to be sure.” 

I suppose it’s easy to wax poetic when one doesn’t have to roll out of a warm bed at the crack of dawn and go “tote barge or lift bale.” ‘Far as I know Shakespeare didn’t have a day job. He probably slept late the day he wrote, “The morning steals upon the night melting the darkness.” 

Or poet John Melton when he penned, “Sweet is the breath of morn; he rising sweet with charms of earliest birds.” 

Benjamin Franklin gave us, “The morning hour has gold in its mouth.” 

Of course, it’s been paid: not all those who have risen by dawn’s early light have found beauty, inspiration, or poetry in the experience. The most honest summation of early rising was given by the late Earl Wallace, commissioner of the Kentucky Department of fish and Wildlife, on occasion having to arise at 4 a.m.: “Getting up this early,” he said, “isn’t so bad after you get over the first MAD.” 

My old friend, Sonny Fentress, said one time, “The hardest day’s work I have to do is to get out of bed each morning.” I had a cousin when he visited our aunt and uncle on the farm repeated, “I’ll tell you one thing, you can stay all night quicker here than anywhere I know.” 

One of my brothers-in-law had a hard time getting going of a morning. He and his dad had a new-car dealership. It was custom to bring all the new automobile inside the fence before closing each day. All hands on deck: mechanics, parts clerks, office help and so on pitched-in at the end of the day and drove the new cars inside. 

My brother in law was late to work most mornings. When he finally arrived his dad always asked the same question- “Which one do you want to bring in?” 

Kindest regards…..