The Ballad of Victor and Baxter

This tale is as ancient as Athens,

As Olympic as Zeus in its scale.

It’s a voyage of questing and courage

In search of the Holy Grail.

Like Ulysses in search of his future,

Beset by monsters and guile.

Where Charybdis and Scylla were lurking,

As was Circe with her liquefied smile.

Our Victor knows well of Ulysses,

And his twenty years’ perils to face.

Now his own years of torment and hardship

Have finally come down to one race.

From the toil of his quest he grows hardened,

How the lines are etched deep in his face.

His Foe, the Many Fanged Baxter,

Who snarled there is no second place.

Our Saga here deals with heroics.

Does it matter who finally wins?

Well, we leave that to you, our dear Reader.

And now our story begins:

On a morning of Stygian darkness

With the sun yet far from aglow,

A spectral form was seen pacing,

Then launching his scull to row.

His face had the look of an Eagle

Scouring the Heavens for prey.

His Freudian mind ever searching

For another fierce dragon to slay.

‘Twas our Victor, possessed by a Demon.

His eyes light his way like fire.

Quoth he, "I will beat that Baxter

And I’ll row to Hell ‘fore I tire."

He launches his scull like a rocket,

A cloud of foam in his wake.

Poseidon and Mars, how they tremble

While weeping for Baxter’s sake.

A light glowed ahead in the blackness,

Aboard a sleek hull of light blue.

‘Twas our Baxter astride his Van Dusen.

Yet fearful his time had come due.

Victor lashed the water like Xerxes,

His oars like whips were full bent.

His boat plowed a furrow of liquid

As into the darkness he went.

Now our Victor he raved like a madman,

His nemesis, Baxter, to catch.

The stroke surged to forty, then fifty,

Which Victor now shrieked he would match.

Then they disappeared into the darkness

And the splashes of oars died away.

The waters closed calmly behind them

As night turned to Judgment Day.

At last the sun rose in the morning,

The thrushes and larks in full throat.

The river turned glassy and tranquil,
And nowhere in sight was a boat.

Yet another boat launched on the River

As soon as the darkness had flown.

They searched far and wide for two scullers

But found they were rowing alone.

They had vanished deep into the ether,

Their souls and their flesh and their bone.

You can ask what you will about winners

But the Truth? It may never be known.

Lo, the fairest of all of NHRC’s Maidens

Each morn prays aloud through her fears.

Her lone vigil keeps while she wails and she weeps,

And sheds mighty crocodile tears.

O! Go down to the dock on a morning

With the moon and the mists nearly done.

You may hear a faint cry from the heavens
Proclaiming "I won! I won!"

- Steve Gurney, NHRC West