Pre-Tour Note: The Vinegar Man

When I was a teenager, I heard a song that has never left me. The words were haunting and the visual stayed with me all my life. The song was sung by a group called the 3D’s and the name of the song was “Vinegar Man." The words came from a poem by Ruth Comfort Mitchell (1882-1954).

You can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZx890N-DOs and the lyrics are below (the braces represent added lines by the 3D’s although there are numerous other word changes here and there)

Vinegar Man by Ruth Comfort Mitchell (1882-1954); music by Richard C. Davis; performed by 3D’s

The crazy old vinegar man is dead! 
He never had missed a day before!
But somebody went to his tumble-down shed
by the Haunted House and forced the door.
There in the litter of his pungent pans, 
the murky mess of his mixin' place;
Deep, sticky spiders and empty cans 
and the same old frown on his sour old face.
“Vinegar - Vinegar - Vinegar Man!”
”Face-us-and-chase-us-and-catch-us-if-you-can!”
“Pepper for a tongue! Pickle for a nose!” 
“Stick a pin in him and vinegar flows!”
“Glare-at-us, swear-at-us, catch-us-if-you-can!”
“Ketchup-and-chow-chow-and-Vinegar-Van!”
Nothin' but recipes and worthless junk; 
Greasy old record books of paid and due.
But down in the depths of a battered trunk, 
a queer, quaint, Valentine torn in two?
Red hearts and arrows and silver lace,
and a prim, dim, ladylike script that said:
‘With dearest love, from Ellen to Ned.’
{Old vinegar man with a sour, old face.}
“Steal-us-and-peel-us-and-drown-us-in-brine.!”
He pickles his heart in a…Valentine.
“Vinegar for blood! Pepper for his tongue!”
“Stick a pin in him and…”
once he was young.
"Glare-at-us-swear-at-us-catch-us-if-you-can!”
‘With dearest love’…to the vinegar man.
Dingy little books of profit and loss. 
(died about Saturday, so they say),
And a queer, quaint valentine torn across…
Torn, but it never was thrown away!
‘With dearest love from Ellen to Ned.’
“Old pepper tongue! Pickles his heart in brine!”
The vinegar man is a long time dead: 
He died when he tore his valentine.

I wrote of this in a blog years ago that was hacked into oblivion, but Christina had written the following comment:

I found this poem in a 100-year-old book of poems for children. The author had included a gentle admonishment to be kind to the many "queer" people who live among us. I think every childhood has some ghosts of Vinegar Men. Mine included a low functioning man who mowed lawns for his living and who was terrorized by teen boys who called him "Cherokee Chuck" and made mock war dances around him in order to evoke his peculiar rage.

You may live next door to a “vinegar man." He lives there because your family lives next door to him.