Wednesday

Reasons for creating the"rhymes"



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When a reporter asked Edmund Hillary, the first man to conquer Mount Everest, why he did it, he answered "Because it's there and I could". That's pretty much why I write poems. At Sea Cadets, an occasional after-school activity, I learned from a poem how to steer a ship safely at night after it LEFT PORT (and to tell port from starboard):
When both lights you see ahead, starboard turn and show your red
If to your starboard red appear, it is your duty to keep clear
To act as judgment says is proper, starboard, port, back or stop her
But if upon your port is seen, a vessel's starboard light of green
There's not much for you to do, as green to port keeps clear of you
Both in safety and in doubt always keep a good watch out
In danger with no room to turn, ease her, stop then full astern.     
Author unknown.

I've never navigated a ship at night but it was fun to learn. Later, I discovered in chemistry the first period of the Table of Elements after hydrogen had a rhythm like Frère Jacque when pronounced like Helly Bebknoff: He Li Be B C N O F. These are both examples of mnemonics, or memory aids. If you want to learn more science in an enjoyable way, check out my blogspot called "Science Mnemonic Rhymes" Its web address is http://beechsciencerhymery.blogspot.com

About Alan





Alan Beech was raised in England and orphaned at 16 during WW II. After wasting the legacy of his parents' estate on poker and 9-card brag and failing at college, he was drafted into the British army. There he wangled into college courses at Göttingen and later to the plum station of Berlin. An ex-army scholarship enabled him to get a chemistry degree at London University. In the United States he was offered a fellowship to study pharmacology at U of MD School of Medicine and he earned a Ph.D. After a truncated post doc at Johns Hopkins he worked in miscellaneous laboratories, universities, colleges and schools. He is an amateur hippie, actor and poet.