One More Clerihew, for my friend, Tom Durkin

One More Clerihew, for my friend, Tom Durkin

As I mentioned once before, as I was wandering through A Poet's Glossary by Edward Hirsch, I ran across a special term, a clerihew.  Anyway, it is right there on page 112, between "classic" and "cliche."  Quoting Mr. Hirsch, "It consists of a skewed quatrain--two rhyming couplets of unequal length that whimsically encapsulate a person's biography..."  (How can you not just love a book full of definitions like this one?)  Usually, the name of the person being sent up appears in the first couplet.  He offers this example--Today

Geoffrey Chaucer
Could hardly have been coarser
But this never harmed the sales
Of his Canterbury Tales 

Today, I pay tribute to an old friend of mine, the well-known racetrack announcer who called the Breeder's Cup races for many years and was the race caller for NBC Sports from 1984 thru 2010.  He capped his career by calling the Triple Crown races for ten years (thirty races, in all), until he gave it up in 2011.  Next month, he retires, calling his last race at New York's Saratoga Springs on August 31st.  Here is his clerihew--

Tom Durkin, he was a grand racetrack announcer,

All the races he’s called, I sure could nay count, sir.

He coined many a phrase, and polished his words,

Methinks wasting such work on those old railbirds. 

Congratulations, Tom.  The A and W's salute you.