a hundred years ago today
March 7, 1923, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is published.
Then and always a favorite, again perhaps because I watched and heard him read it fall 1953 and spring 1954 in an auditorium my freshman year at UnivFlorida in Gainesville. Robert Frost, whom we had read at Bay High, and maybe at Cove School, lived seasonally between Florida and Vermont, and stopped here and there for evening readings as he drove back and forth spring and fall, Gainesville on his regular list and a major draw for enthusiastic crowds. Those visits, he would have been 79 and 80 years old.
Me, I was 18, away from home, experiencing independence and determined never to let go of it, which obviously I broke in 1959 when I decided to make a career of the U S Navy. College freedom meant making my own decisions, or none such as never bothering to change my bed all semester, whereas Philip my roommate changed his bed every week.
Living for the moment, I guess, certain I was grown and fully mature. What were we interested in? Girl friends, writing them and watching for mail from them. From mama, a sour cream pound cake or box of brownies in the mail from Time to Time.
Of studies, I only enjoyed C-42 Math, and the second semester C-41 Logic, but I was leery of an Engineering major because of the heavy math load my Florida classmates from Bay High were starting as they headed into in the College of Engineering. What was I contemplating? At the Time, I was sure I was going to theological seminary after college, started in that direction, changed my mind and to a Business Administration major and a BSBA in 1957. Except for Business Law, it was to me the most boring academic direction I could have taken.
Fall 1953, first semester freshman, I pledged KA, a social fraternity and was initiated second semester but dropped active involvement after my sophomore year. In the College of Business Administration, I was invited to join Alpha Kappa Psi, a professional fraternity for business majors, president of the UF chapter my senior year.
At UF, tuition was $75 a semester, new textbooks were pricey at around $5 each, so I soon started turning them in at the end of each semester, and buying used textbooks beginning of the next semester. But my college was basically no cost to my family, as, starting second semester freshman year, I worked in the University Food Service Division, first for meal tickets, later a pay check, taking orders for hamburgers, running a cash register, serving banquets, and my junior and senior year a supervisor. A big thing now and then with buddies was borrowing someone's car to drive down to Ocala to a steak house where a small filet mignon was $1.25 and a large one $1.50.
Summer 1956, between my junior and senior year, Linda transferred from her college in Virginia to Florida and we went to summer school so she could complete courses to transfer in as a junior. That summer, my parents bought a sporty Buick Century hardtop coupe for mama and gave me the green Dodge sedan, which Linda needed more than I did, so kept at the women's dorm most of the Time. I don't remember whether Robert Frost was still coming to read by then, because my interests were changing.
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Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is published
The New Republic publishes Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The poem, beginning with the famous line “Whose woods these are, I think I know. His house is in the village though,” has introduced millions of American students to poetry.
Like most of Frost’s poetry, “Stopping by Woods” adopts the tone of a simple New England farmer contemplating an everyday site. But Robert Frost was very different from the narrators he created. Long associated with New England and farming, Frost was actually born in California in 1874, where he lived until his father, a journalist, died when he was 11. His mother brought him to Massachusetts, where he graduated as co-valedictorian of his high school class. He attended Dartmouth and Harvard but didn’t complete a degree at either school. Three years after high school, he married his fellow high school valedictorian, Elinor White.
Frost tried unsuccessfully to run a New England farm, and the family, which soon included four children, struggled with poverty for two decades. Frost became more and more depressed, perhaps even suicidal, and in 1912 he moved his family to England to make a fresh start. There he concentrated on his poetry and published a collection called A Boy’s Will in 1913, which won praise from English critics and helped him win a U.S. publishing contract for his second book, North of Boston (1914). The American public took a liking to the 40-year-old Frost, who returned to the U.S. when World War I broke out and bought another farm in New Hampshire. He continued to publish books and taught and lectured at Amherst, University of Michigan, Harvard, and Dartmouth, and read his poetry at the inauguration of President Kennedy. He also endured personal tragedy when a son died by suicide and a daughter had a mental breakdown.
Although Frost never graduated from a university, he had collected 44 honorary degrees before he died in 1963.