who's the waitress in the donut shop now

who's the waitress in the donut shop now

fiction
edward w pritchard

I been reading about which books make up the definitive Western Canon by Harold Bloom and others of late. You know so many thick old novels it's impossible to read or remember. Shakespeare, Plato, Homer and Aristotle are the foundation stones of western literature and thought and rightly so I suppose.

Still curious to understand why so few women authors are represented in the agreed upon Canonical books I went beyond Harold Bloom's Cannon and gnosis  and read some feminist, persons of color, and trans gender ideas on great books throughout History. Desiring a brief synopsis of the subject I settled on Lillian S. Robinson's "Treason our Text" Feminist challenges to the Literary challenges.

Stealing an idea from Lillian Robinson I thought perhaps the Black blues singer "big" Mamma Thorton's masterpiece which influenced modern American rock and roll, the memorable "You a'int nothing but a Hound dog" might classify somehow as an underground part of some body's Cannon of great authorship. Alas not so. And, incidentally the song Houndog was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

Neither considered as worthy of being canonical the song "Sweetheart" better known as "waitress in a donut shop" which I came to find out was not written by Suzy Bogus or Maria Maldaur but a man Ken Burgan.

To my way of thinking "you ain't nothing but a hound dog" or "waitress in a donut shop" summarize a lot of wisdom in a few short words and I never forget or fail to understand such concepts once I hear them.

Why so few canonical women authors throughout history? In my opinion it has a lot to do with who takes care of the children and the low status of the job and the exhausting nature of the task. Besides it doesn't matter who is the waitress in the donut shop anymore when it comes to inter personal domestic matters, such as who cares for the children. The children just keep on coming onto the scene and it's always a challenge to care for and nurture them and no amount of IQ or creativity can substitute for the time and attention to detail necessary to do a competent job as a caregiver.