100 Years Of "What's Next?"

Wilda Vail’s yearbook inscription, beneath her picture, had the prophetic verse, “Come and trip it as ye go, On the light fantastic toe.” Whoever put that under Mom’s 1928 yearbook had no idea just how right that would turn out to be.

In the poem L'Allegro by John Milton, published in 1645, a similar phrase appears, which seemingly refers to the dance-like gracefulness of the goddess Mirth:

"Come, and trip it as ye go, On the light fantastick toe.
And in thy right hand lead with thee, The Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty."

The term trip in this passage means to step lightly or nimbly. The adjectives light and fantastick (as Milton spelled it) refer to the movement of the feet (toe, or dance step). (Yahoo Answers.)

She would have been 100 today and I, at least, fully expected her to be here with us, but it was not to be. As a teen, her girlfriend bet her she would not go up in a barnstormer’s plane at a penny-a-pound spin around the airport. Nobody does that and gets away with it; she told her mother only later. This would have been around 1925.

She started teaching me how to drive when I was about 12 – on the open road. And one time this so-called open road was a narrow causeway leading out across the swamp. I do hope she is laughing at this as I write it. I sure am. Happy birthday, Mom, and billions more.