Miles to Go: Behind the Name

I was thinking today about why I named my blog "Miles to Go." I guess there is a reason for it other than the fact that I like that name. One reason is Dr. Bob Carlson.

Dr. Bob Carlson was a professor at Wyoming Catholic College, one of the founding fathers, to be exact. Every year WCC students memorize approximately ten poems a year. (That is, we are supposed to learn them. I can't say I can recite all forty poems by memory.) One of these poems, Dr. Carlson's favorite, is Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods". Because it is Dr. Carlson's favorite, it has become a school favorite. We all know it by heart, much better than any other poem. We always recite it en masse at the matriculation ceremony every year.

I do like this poem very much. In a way it expresses the journey we're all on, the journey that our four years at WCC prepared us for. We have miles to go until we reach our end, and what we do with those miles is important. We have miles to go before we sleep, and we cannot rest until have done what we have to do: set the world on fire!

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here 

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and down flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.