Day 201: De Smet Regret

They proceeded west across the border to De Smet, South Dakota. De Smet is one of many communities that can say, “Laura Ingalls Wilder lived here.” Laura was born near Pepin, Wisconsin. She was the daughter of Charles Phillips Ingalls, a restless man who frequently changed occupations and locations. Her father worked as a farmer, butcher, justice of the peace, railroad worker, and hotel manager at various times and in various places in Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, and Iowa, before the family finally settled in De Smet. There Laura taught school (at age 16) until she married Almanzo Wilder. Later she wrote the “Little House” books about a young girl growing up in pioneer times. Laetitia took her group to the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead, but she could think of little about Laura Ingalls Wilder that would make a good limerick, so afterwards she took everyone to an Irish pub for dinner. While her tour guests dined, Laetitia sat at the bar with a Guinness hoping for some gossip that could be turned into a limerick, and she was not disappointed.

Young Arlo soon came to regret
That caper when he and Yvette
Were caught nude in church
And left in a lurch
On Youth Night in downtown De Smet.

Day 141: Bleezin’ Season

As she walked down Raglan Road toward the Emerald Victorian, Laetitia decided it was time for another day off. She had met some friends last evening at one of Hibernia’s Irish pubs to enjoy a ceili band. The band had a fine female vocalist who sang, among a wide variety of other songs, an excellent rendition of Mickey’s Warning. Both the Scots and the Irish claim the song, which is a traditional dark ballad about an unfortunate marriage and a battered wife who rebels in her own way. The first verse goes:

Friends, I have a sad story, a very sad story to tell
I married a man for his money, and he’s worse than the devil himself
So I’ll go and I’ll get blue bleezin’ blind drunk, just to give Mickey a warning
And then just for spite, I’ll stay home all night, and come rolling home drunk in the morning.

It wasn’t clear whether the song had anything to do with it, but shortly thereafter, when the band took a break, a couple who had had a great deal to drink had a spat, that Laetitia wrote up as the limerick of the day.

When Nell’s husband called her a prude
She suddenly stripped herself nude
And told saucy fables
While dancing on tables
And generally acting quite lewd.

Day 65: Tryst Mist

Laetitia and her group went to Ardglass in County Cork. It is a small village with the usual church, post office, a few stores, and a pub, all centered around the village green. In the center of the green was a statue of someone on a horse that was a favorite roosting spot for pigeons. Radiating out from the center were sidewalks lined with flowers, shrubs, and trees all arranged in an elegant and tasteful manner. Laetitia and her group stopped at the pub there on the way to Fermoy. The conversation with some local residents there centered on the green and how beautiful it was. What also emerged from the conversation was the observation that it was a favorite trysting place for teenagers and a funny story about an incident that occurred after the village installed lawn sprinklers. The story provided Laetitia with the limerick of the day.

There once was a young Irish lass
Who enjoyed making love on the grass
‘Til the sprinklers came on
And her erstwhile Don Juan
Ran quite nude through the streets of Ardglass.

Day 32: Ladies View

Laetitia met her group in Killarney, and they spent the day hiking to Ladies View at Killarney National Park. When Queen Victoria visited the Killarney Lakes area in 1861, her retinue stopped at a spot with a splendid view of the lakes so her ladies-in-waiting could admire the view. The place came to be known as “Ladies View.” That afternoon, back in a pub in Killarney, Laetitia heard a joke about an American college student that became the limerick of the day.

Touring Ireland, a lad from Purdue
As he stopped for his map to review
Saw three maids, it would seem
Bathing nude in a stream
And he thought he was at Ladies View.