Miniver Cheevy

Sometimes I feel like an anachronism. Loving classical music, literature, fly fishing, nature, fine art, English country clothing and other finer things in life certainly sets me apart from the madding crowd. It also makes me eccentric.
I guess I am proud of this. Loving the aesthetic qualities of fly fishing, I am able to receive greater joy in its pursuit.
It is hard to love the finer things in life while society continuously dumbs itself down and craps out consumer culture like so much diarrhea. Rap is not music. If you want to hear music listen to Bach's Goldberg Variations. Britney Spears is not an artist, If you want to see an artist go watch Itzak Perlman. Thomas Kinkaid is not a painter, if you want to see a painter visit here.
So, I am an elitist snob, right? preferring Oscar Wilde to Rush Limbaugh means that I must come from New York, and attend an Ivy-League school...

Or, perhaps it is just simply that I have always strove to find the pinnacle of art in everything. There I find true beauty.

I have been called a snob for just being a fly fisherman. "You don't need that fancy-ass equipment to catch them fish, I can catch twice as much with a twenty-dollar spinning rod from K-Mart."
He is right, he can catch twice as many fish as I do, but I will always enjoy them more. By always thinking of the art, and the connection to nature and beauty, I cherish every fish and every day.

So, it is hard not to feel like Miniver Cheevy...

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
  Grew lean while he assailed the seasons
He wept that he was ever born,
  And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
  When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
  Would send him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
  And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
  And Priam's neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
  That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
  And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
  Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
  Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
  And eyed a khaki suit with loathing:
He missed the medieval grace
  Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
  But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
  And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
  Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
  And kept on drinking.

   Edwin A. Robinson