Ode to Durham, NC
While driving home from Baltimore today, I started to get a little sentimental over my adoptive hometown of Durham, North Carolina. Prose seemed inadequate to the moment, so I composed this poem. Warning: You may need a hanky for this.
Ode to Durham
City of Medicine, my home, Durham
Send us your sick folks, we're gonna cure 'em
Head up to Hartford if you want to insure 'em
But I'm gonna stay right here in Durham
Jews are welcome here in Durham
Bring your grogger! Celebrate Purim!
On Shabbas our goyim can chauffeur 'em
We've got two shuls right here in Durham!
Living down in Raleigh is a capital idea
For rich folks, Chapel Hill's a residential panacea
But only one Triangle town can treat your pyorrhea
Durham! Durham! Citta di Medicina Mia!
Ode to DurhamCity of Medicine, my home, Durham
Send us your sick folks, we're gonna cure 'em
Head up to Hartford if you want to insure 'em
But I'm gonna stay right here in Durham
Jews are welcome here in Durham
Bring your grogger! Celebrate Purim!
On Shabbas our goyim can chauffeur 'em
We've got two shuls right here in Durham!
Living down in Raleigh is a capital idea
For rich folks, Chapel Hill's a residential panacea
But only one Triangle town can treat your pyorrhea
Durham! Durham! Citta di Medicina Mia!
Labels: humor
posted by Tom Meltzer @ 3:21 PM
8 Comments:
At 5:39 PM ,
Anonymous said...
Brains sez,
I just saw John Mellencamp sing his sleep-inducing, patronizing (uh, patriotic) Ford (maybe, Chevrolet or Toyota, I'm not sure)truck song "Our Country" at Comerica Stadium just before Game 2 of the World Series. I would have rather had you stand near home plate singing (or reciting) the narrowly-focused, yet, highly entertaining "Ode to Durham, NC" than listen to Johnny Cougar praise every possible zip code in the United States.
Heck, even a vocab minute would have been better than his "I do believe there's a dream for everyone" drivle.
Plus, you would have been on time and not delayed the baseball game.
At 5:49 PM ,
Tom Meltzer said...
Brains, you are a man of many great ideas (as your name suggests you must be), and this is one of them!
At 6:01 PM ,
James Lynch III said...
umm... the artie lange soliloquy rocked whatever was left of the WS Mojo before the first game... but I must most vociferously disagree with the offhand dissing of the vocab minutes made by your first commenter... btw... its a chevy commercial. mellencamp replaced seger's like a fucking rock, who coincidentally, sang america the beautiful instead of the anthem before game one.
At 9:30 PM ,
Anonymous said...
Oh, dear. I didn't mean to diss Princeton Review Vocab Minute. I was just a bit hesitant to recommend it as a preamble to a World Series game. Baseball has a certain tradition that doesn't include Roseann Barr scratching her crotch after singing The National Anthem. Likewise, I had reservations that 50,000 baseball fans would be in the mood for a vocabulary lesson.
But, if Mr. Melzer plays to the crowd with his vocab minute, a new World Series tradition could be established.
(Imagine that tonight, Tom's home is Comerica Park...Tuesday, Busch Stadium..Tom grabs the microphone and begins to sing.... There are so many ways to say I invite you to my home... Comerica Park, How ya doin?...(Tom is wearing an Detroit Tigers baseball uniform and waves his Detroit Tigers cap. The crowd erupts...A new World Series tradition is born!)
At 6:47 AM ,
Anonymous said...
"City of Medicine, my home, Durham"
That's almost as poetic as "Cleveland, city of lights, city of magic"
Hey man, the next time you drive to or from Balmer, make a quick stop in Northern VA!
At 8:02 AM ,
Lisa Meltzer said...
Myyyyy kind of town. . . Durham is. . . .
At 4:53 PM ,
Wendy said...
you do write the best songs.
At 8:44 AM ,
Jeff Hart said...
little known runners up to the city of medicine moniker:
Smoketown
Drag City
Filterville
Secondhand Smoketown
Lucky Strike
LS/MFT
Ci-tay by the Free-Way
Coach K Burg
Nello Teerville
Wool E. Hood
Laettner Land
I.L. "Buck" Dean Dome Town
Southpoint North
The Streets Above Southpoint
and lastly:
Krzyzewski-Madejczyk
town motto:
"more k's and z's per capita than any other u.s. city"
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