Brief by Ed Quillen
Mountain Life – March 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
On one frigid Januuary afternoon I had a computer question, and called the man who has forgotten more about computers than most people will ever know — Mark Emmer, who lives a couple of miles outside Salida.
Mark sounded groggy, so I apologized for waking him during his siesta (in my view, a fundamental right guaranteed to people residing on former Mexican territory by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo).
He was actually rather grateful, more or less, since he said he had been suffering from “wood-stove narcolepsy,” an ailment that has invaded our quarters, as well.
Narcolepsy has nothing to do with narcotics; technically, it’s a medical condition that makes you sleep all the time. And that’s exactly what you feel like doing when the stove is full of glowing embers and you can’t work up the energy to leave that comfortable heated room. You stretch out on the couch for a few minutes, but hours may pass …
Poetry came to mind because of the Sparrows festival and workshop in Salida (thanks and congratulations to organizer Jude Jannet, who put together an excellent program and made it all work).
Thus when I noticed a poetic cadence in the phrase “wood-stove narcolepsy blues,” it inspired this suggested song lyric:
The Wood-Stove Narcolepsy Blues
White stuff keeps piling on my driveway
There’s a snowdrift on my floor
The county never plows my byway
And there are gaps around my door
CHORUS
The mercury outside is frozen
But I’m cozy and I’m dozin’
All I ever want to do is snooze
I got the wood-stove narcolepsy blues
My pickup starter just goes “clickety-click”
If it makes a sound at all
And my tires are all “slippery slick”
I ain’t been nowhere since last fall
The phone line went down in November
Can’t call or surf the ‘Net
But there’s one thing that company remembers
Their bill’s the only mail I get
This dying fire won’t linger
It needs another log
But I don’t want to lift a finger
— So someday I’m gonna teach my dog
How to feed these wood-stove narcolepsy blues
So is there anyone out there who wants to host a motivational seminar for journalists?