1.
There was a magician in Scranton
Who made a good living incantin'
But his bladder infected
Could not be neglected
"My Doc says to take Macrodantin!*

*(which, as you might gather, is an antibiotic often given for urinary-tract infections)

2.
A lunatic farmer from Scranton
Will often rail, curse and rant on
Farming issues arcane
People say he's insane
Since he doesn't have soil he can planton


3.
A long-distance cyclist from Scranton
Decided to ride clear to Stanton
As he turned for Great Falls
He sat hard on his balls
And went to the doctor in Canton

4.
When thinking of Scranton, PA,
Nottingham lace, they all say,
Is what it's known for,
But I think there's more -
It's Biden who WON on that day!

5.
A musician residing in Scranton
Said "I hate all the music of Anton
Bruckner; played fast or slow
It impels me to go
And escape to my Alpine Swiss canton.”

6.
A writer from Scranton PA
Said "I fear I could sit here all day
'Cause it gives me a pain
All this wracking my brain
But I'll get something in, come what may."

7.
We’re well overdue to abandon
Our president hailing from Scranton.
I cannot abide him!
The way to deride him
Is simply to say, “Let’s go Brandon!”

8.
Not too many words rhymin' with Scranton:
Epilepsy you treat with Dilantin
Or you say (if I may)
"I'll just rhyme with PA!"
And you run 'round in circles, and pantin'.

9.
I once met an odd gal from Scranton
Who couldn’t have sex unless chantin’
She knew lots of ditties
‘Bout sailors and titties
And yelled them while bouncin’ and pantin’

Question:
Vote early, vote often.

Choices:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

 

I’d love to, for 2, 9, and 3, but it’ll only let mw vote once. Boooo…

For such a difficult one to rhyme there are several really good ones! I'd add #1 and #8 to Haberdasher's lizst.

Raised in NYS, one tended to call Troy “the armpit of the nation” (why, I have no idea.) But for friends from PA that honor went to Scranton. As we passed it, traveling South on I-81, my PA college boyfriend and I would break into a chorus of Scranton's Burning [to the tune of “Scotland’s Burning”].

Troy? I would have thought Schenectady. Troy has RPI, at least. Unless that was for some local reason the source of the derision?

There must be someone else who wants to vote. At the moment three votes for three different limericks is all we have.

quote:

Originally posted by haberdasher:
Troy? I would have thought Schenectady. Troy has RPI, at least. Unless that was for some local reason the source of the derision?

RPI? Retail Price Index?

Ahh. Never assume. RPI is Rensellaer Polytechnic Institute. Perhaps its most distinguished graduate was John Augustus Roebling, a polymath whose crowning accomplishment was to conceive and then build the Great Bridge, as so ably chronicled in David McCullough's fascinating book The Great Bridge (see the NYT review here).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: haberdasher,

PS. In case the (50-year-old!) review is behind a firewall - here's how it begins:

Bells rang, whistles blew, cannon boomed, a calliope shrieked out “America,” and orators praised and pointed. It was May 24, 1883, the most important day of public ceremony in New York since the opening of the Erie Canal, for it marked the completion of the magnificent “East River Bridge,” widely regarded then and now as the most beautiful suspension bridge in the world. The occasion was a jour ferie for all New York and Brooklyn. There were only a few dissenters—the builder, who deplored all the fuss; the militant Irish, who objected because the celebration was held on Queen Victoria's birthday, and the first rustic visitor to be conned into buying the bridge.

The impact of the soaring structure upon the American imagination and American life has now been measured with sagacity and style by David McCullough, author of “The Johnstown Flood,” a writer with a sound intuitive sense of what to put in and what to leave out of his narrative. The account of the building is supplemented by deft portraits of the heroes and anti‐heroes who helped to construct, or obstruct, the enterprise. The bridge was never regarded as just another useful public improvement. Even before it was opened, Mr. McCullough writes, “it had become symbol of something impossible to define that made New York different from every other city on earth.”

The idea of connecting lower Manhattan with Brooklyn was as old as the century. It took shape as a serious proposal in 1869 as a result of the dynamism of John Augustus Roebling, innovative engineer and wealthy wire‐rope manufacturer. Then when all necessary clearances had been obtained and work was about to begin, Roebling's foot was crushed in an improbable accident at the Brooklyn slip of the Fulton Street ferry. He died horribly of tetanus, as macabre stories circulated to the effect that the only safe bridge was one that had claimed life.

Colonel Washington A. Roebling took over the post of chief engineer from his father and built the bridge—though the effects of compressed air in a caisson cost him his health. Physically incapacitated, he never set foot on his bridge, while for II years his contact with the actual construction was handled through his remarkable wife, Emily. On the day of the grand opening, Roebling “sat alone at his window, his field glasses trained on the bridge, watching the procession until the last top‐hatted figures … passed beneath the arches of the Brooklyn tower.” We, too, our senses sharpened by a book, hear snatches of distant band music, see the fireworks of 89 years ago decorate the night sky, and are drawn to speculate upon the thoughts of the engineer who sat alone and watched. author is writing for a general audience, he has not slighted the technical story and deals as carefully and lucidly with the geology of the New York area, the functions of caissons and air locks and the spinning of the 15¾ inch cables, as he does with the sinuous turnings of municipal politics in the Boss Tweed era or the wider social setting. One gets a sense of the best and the worst of America during the 14 years covered: the astonishing exactness of the engineering calculations, the emergencies, the brilliant improvisations, the difficulties overcome, the sheer beauty of the web of steel, the raw courage of the men working under the tidal strait...

Let's not forget Octave Chanute a bit farther west:https://kclibrary.org/signature-events/engineered-irony-octave-chanute%E2%80%99s-kansas-city-bridge

Given the circumstances I think we should out ourselves. What say you?

I'll do it.

1.Haberdasher
2.Geoff
3.Geoff
4.Kalleh
5.Haberdasher
6.Haberdasher
7.shufitz
8.Haberdasher
9.bethree5

So it sees that I have to use my deciding vote. I’ll vote for number 9 and declare bethree5 the winner.

I'm the one who voted for #9, so Bethree5, you're welcome!

Thanks, Geoff! [& my vote was for yours!]

So, just to revive this thread [& pls forgive me for 2 full wks of loafing & sloughing off]: it appears we have 1 vote each for Hab, Geoff & me. So why don’t the 3 of us get cracking on a potential new location: 1st one to think of one takes it away for next round. OK?

The first two that came to mind were Gdansk and Taos. Nah - I don't think so!

Everything is possible with a little imagination.

A Danish young man in Gdansk
Tried hard to master some sansk-
rit, but he found
He could not get the sound
So settled for engelsk and spansk*

And Taos, at least in my accent, would rhyme easily with mouse, house and louse, so too easy to bother with right now as it's past my bedtime.

* English and Spanish (in Danish)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

...not to mention that in addition to Dansk being a high-end kitchenware vendor, Dansk is Danish for Danish. (I mean the language, not the pastry)

And I wonder whether we might need to invent a "vote index" - votes per submission. After all, I put in four entries and got only one vote for the lot of 'em, and Geoff got one with his two entries, and you needed just the one, so your limeriquality (as it were) is clearly highest...

Speaking of Octave Chanute and the Kansas City bridge, McCullough seems to have dismissed it with only a passing reference here on Page 83 of his book. But he _did_ mention it.

quote:

Originally posted by haberdasher:
...not to mention that in addition to Dansk being a high-end kitchenware vendor, Dansk is Danish for Danish. (I mean the language, not the pastry)

What about Norge? Do they still sell refrigerators? Or Powdermilk Biscuits? Or Weejuns? Ah, well, it's all Grieg to me.

Taos sounds like a good one.

I thought of Mali but its rhymes seemed suspiciously familiar. Sure enough, a search showed we'd done Raleigh a few years ago..

I like the Seychelles...

Are we going to New Mexico or off the coast of africa? Tell us, Bethree5.

Geez guys. How do I explain THIS one? Six weeks AWOL. Today I awoke from coma [sure, Ginny, tell us another one] & read through this thread more carefully. It seems I was pronounced winner. (You can tell from my 1/16 post that I didn't catch that.) So the site is like, "who are you?." Turns out I've been a member so long, my pw here isn't even on my list of pw's so I had to send for it. LOL. It's the pw I used to use very early on, before one began having to add an uppercase letter here, a number or a punctuation mark there, etc. >DOH!<

I owe you at least a limerick location! I was going to go with Seychelles, but just learned I've been doing the English pronunciation wrong. Accent on last syllable, which could really limit things. Will post one soon.

While you’re waiting, enjoy this masterful limerick from Mark Twain.

A man hired by John Smith and Co.
Loudly declared that he’d tho.
Men that he saw
Dumping dirt by the door
The drivers, therefore, didn’t do.