Aug. 13, 2009, Baby Street

I know that there are conspiracy theorists out there who believe that somehow Barack Obama and his family traveled back in time to 1960 to create a fake birth certificate and place a fake birth announcement in one of the Hawaiian newspapers. Well, I’ve come up with my own conspiracy theory that says something different.
I recently discovered a book of poetry about Hawaii called “Vagabond’s House,” written by Don Blanding and published by Dodd, Mead & Co. of New York in 1936. It contains an oddly prophetic poem about someone who could be Barack, and I am suggesting to folks who think the birthers are desperate (that includes me) that they hint that Blanding traveled back in time to 1936, wrote this poem, had someone donate it to the Cincinnati Public Library in 1957, and had the book at the library all these decades (because the book looks old!).
This is the poem Baby Street. I know the terminology is very, very politically incorrect and can make you cringe, but wait until you get to the end!

I walk quite slowly down Baby Street,
Babies are everywhere...under my feet,
Sprawled on the sidewalks, perched on the walls,
Babies in dydies, in blue overalls,
Babies in rompers of flowered cretonne,
Babies with not much of anything on,
Little brown babies in brown mamas’ laps,
Philippine babies, Koreans and Japs,
Fresh shiny babies right out of the tub,
Babies in scandalous need of a scrub,
Baby Hawaiians, the sons of a chief,
Rastus from Africa, black past belief,
Babies with yellow hair, babies with brown,
Babies with just a few patches of down,
Toddling babies on little bowed legs,
Very new babies, much balder than eggs,
Portuguese babies and Russians as well,
Babies whose ancestors no one can tell,
Toothless as turkeys, these tiny young tads,
But grinning as though they were dentrifice ads.

Walk very carefully...make your step hesitants.
One of these babies someday may be president.