Interesting (but off-topic) story about Robert Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken" that this picture plays on. I admit to not being a scholar of poetry, nor even a big fan of it. This one, however, happens to have a great deal of meaning for me personally.
I don't recall ever reading or studying it in high school nor in college (but then again as a science major I took only required English courses and poetry was never my favorite type of literature anyway). But there is a very interesting story behind the poem, for those who've never read about this. It's been called the most misinterpreted or misunderstood poem in history by many: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/09/robert-frost-poem-killed-friend/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weve-gotten-wrong-robert-frost-classic/ And some interesting letters exchanged between Frost and the man he wrote it for here: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/road-not-taken-poem-everyone-loves-and-everyone-gets-wrong And here is how I came to learn about this poem's true meaning. When my mother died last year, I actually spoke about this at her funeral because she had the famous last three lines of Frost's poem along with a picture similar to the one in Mags' post above hanging over her writing desk. It read: *Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—* * I took the one less traveled by,* * And that has made all the difference. * I knew for a fact that most in our family misinterpreted that poem (as I had) because they'd said many, many times how fitting it was that this was her favorite poem because she was indeed a trailblazer in more than one way. She did several things in her life that were highly uncommon for women to do - both personally and professionally, big and small. So most assumed this was her attraction to the poem - the misinterpreted famous last three lines of it. Some background. My mom was a kind of feminist - but not the bra-burning, calling for equal rights kind of feminist of the 60s and 70s. She was the kind who quietly went about showing that women could do anything a man could do, and often times better. When we were kids, she could kick a football higher and farther than any dad on our block - including over our house - while barefoot. When she wanted a kitchen bar and my father refused to spend the money, she knocked out the top half of the wall that separated the kitchen and dining room herself, patched and painted the ceiling and wall, and installed a bar the next day. She was like this my entire life, lol. As you can imagine, she was viewed as crazy by some and inspirational by others. An aunt from my father's side said when she'd died that my mom would always be remembered as "the woman who tore down walls", as a play on the kitchen bar story but also of other things she'd accomplished in her life that most of us never even think of trying. She demanded nothing from others to make or declare her "equal" - including from the government and from the men in her life (my father and later my step-father). She was a "doer", not one who demanded someone else do something to enable her to do something, and there is a big difference between the two. As a political aside, this is a big reason why I have little to no respect for the legions of lunatics who call themselves "feminists" today and also for people like Hillary Clinton who simply haven't lived what they preach to others or claim to be true. >From the time I was born, my mother worked a full-time job, a part-time job, and attended college at night to become a nurse (which she achieved when I was in 4th grade). And she did this while raising 3 kids pretty much alone in the 60s (when any one of these things were fairly uncommon). She divorced my father when I was in 5th grade (also uncommon in the 60s) despite a truly massive amount of pressure from both sets of my grandparents. My father had hit her more than once and the second time he did, he was hospitalized because she broke one of those old black phones over his head that weighed about 10 lbs, lol. Another time it was an endtable she used. As a little girl, I personally admired that in her - that she was a fighter who would never take that kind of abuse from anyone. My brothers and I were the only ones who never tried to talk her out of divorcing our dad. She remarried a good man, had another child, but re-divorced, and continued in school for many more years and eventually obtained her master's degree in nursing the year I graduated from college (while my two younger siblings were still at home or in college). At age 50, she left a career in nursing administration she'd worked most of her life to achieve, joined the Army and moved to Germany with my youngest brother in tow, who graduated from high school there. She wanted to "see the world" and this was her/their opportunity to do so. She brought back thousands of photographs and collectibles from dozens of countries all over the world she was able to visit, thanks to the amazing benefits and time off afforded army officers. She finished her career working for the Veteran's Administration until retiring quite comfortably. Back to the poem. So I was kind of shocked when, the night before her memorial service I finally took the time to read the entire poem and for the first time, understand what it was actually about. After decades of knowing that the most famous last lines of this poem hung over her desk, I regretted that I'd never bothered to read and understand the context and have that conversation with her while she was alive. That night my brother and I wondered if she really knew the entire poem and embraced the underlying meaning, or if she was like us - and merely knew of and embraced the inaccurate, deceiving shortened version that betrayed it. I was curious enough to ask the woman who'd been her best friend on Earth for decades what she thought about what my mom's interpretation might have been, and she didn't know either. None of us did, and none of us ever will know with certainty. But we both agreed that it likely wasn't the literal, real meaning that my mom held, as the paths she chose were definitely not as often traveled as other paths, time and time again. She knew she'd chosen the one less traveled on more than one occasion when she faced forks in the road of life. So frankly I think she'd done the same thing I and millions of others had done and only considered the very out-of-context, famous last three lines. The fact that I learned all of this after having those famous final lines engraved on the base of her headstone at first sent me into panic mode. Again, this was the night before her memorial service! But the words I spoke at her service that addressed most of what I've typed here (along with the conclusion and why I'd drawn that conclusion) were very, very well received, which was cool. Many people told me afterward that they, too, had been among the millions/majority who'd never thought about or understood the real meaning of one of Frost's (and one of the world's) most famous poems until I spoke of it that day. And we universally agreed that my mom was one of "us" - *the mistaken*. :) But it was fascinating how a discussion of that poem enabled me to highlight her life in a way that wasn't simply a laundry list of accomplishments in the face of adversity, but something a bit more meaningful. So thanks for the memory of that Mags. -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
