Tennessee Walts, plus that dog-stealing alien in New Jersey again

William Wright's May 4 post "Liberty Bell Follow-Up: The Liberty Bowl" begins with a reference to his "post earlier today on the Walts" -- meaning two different people named Walt: Walt Whitman and a TV character called Walter White. Walts sounds like waltz, and although there are obviously lots of different waltzes out there, the one that immediately came to mind when I read Walts was the 1950 Patti Page song "Tennessee Waltz." It started playing in my head as I read the rest of the post.

The post goes on to say that while William was finishing up his post on "the Walts," he glanced up at the TV and saw that it was showing a football game being played in Memphis, Tennessee.

William's two Walts -- both of whom have "white" surnames -- reminded me that a few years back I posted about another Walt in connection with the color black. My Leap Day 2020 post "A lost alchemical poem of Raleigh's" is about a dream I had in which I was reading a book called Ralegh the Alchemiste which quoted a line from Walter Raleigh -- "My Bodie will blacken and turne into Coale" -- and interpreted it as a reference to the alchemical process of nigredo, or blackening.

I then went on to note that, in the real world, that line is not Raleigh's but comes from a folk song sung by, among other people, Tennessee Ernie Ford. So yet another Tennessee-Walt connection.

Curious as to whether this was going to lead anywhere, I searched my own blog for tennessee. I didn't find any more Walts, but I did find a surprising coincidence in my August 2020 post "Synchronicity: Crop circle in Charlton." At the end of the post, I quote from Jacques Vallée's Passport to Magonia. Vallée tells the story of one Everett Clark, of Dante, Tennessee, who reported that a UFO had attempted to steal his dog on November 6, 1957, and then notes the "extraordinary coincidence" that "on the same day another attempt to steal a dog was made, this time in Everittstown, New Jersey." A footnote adds, "By yet another coincidence, the name of the town in the second case is similar to the name of the witness (Everett) in the first one."

If that sounds at all familiar, it's because I just quoted John Keel's account of the Everittstown dog-stealing incident two days ago, in "Hometo Omleto." I had no memory of having posted another reference to the same incident back in 2020, and I would have been none the wiser had the Tennessee Walt syncs not led me to search for tennessee. Both Keel and Vallée refer to lots of different UFO stories in their respective books, but the sync fairies singled out the same one twice.

A lost alchemical poem of Raleigh's

I dreamt that I had acquired a rare old book entitled Ralegh the Alchemiste, which quoted these lines of Sir Walter Raleigh's poetry and interpreted them as a reference to the alchemical process of nigredo ("blackening").

I hope when I die, and the Ages doe roll,
My Bodie will blacken and turne into Coale :
Then Ile looke from the Doore of my heauenly Home,
And pitie the Miner a digging my Bones.

Doesn't that almost sound as if Raleigh could have written it?

In the waking world, of course, these lines are not Raleigh's but come from the 1946 folk song "Dark as a Dungeon" by Merle Travis, later sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford, Johnny Cash, and many others. I'm partial to Jerry Garcia and David Grisman's version myself.

Keep a-movin', Dan

The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.

-- John 4:15

Give me my scallop shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
    My gown of glory, hope's true gage;
    And thus I'll take my pilgrimage. 

Blood must be my body's balmer;
No other balm will there be given.
Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer,
Travelleth towards the land of heaven. 

Over the silver mountains
Where spring the nectar fountains:
    There will I kiss
    The bowl of bliss,
And drink mine everlasting fill
    Upon every milken hill.
My soul will be a-dry before;
But after, it will thirst no more. 

-- Sir Walter Raleigh, The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage