Cheap Entertainment

Yesterday as we waited for a table for dim-sum with a literal sea of Asians at Lucky Three in Baileys Crossroads, we were thoroughly entertained by a couple of 8-year-old little girls with dark black hair and beautiful Chinese eyes. They had a whole series of rhymes with hand gestures and even foot gestures and they were glad to have an audience.

The first one had to do with lemonade and I can't remember the words. The second one began with:

Welcome to MacDonalds.
Can I take your order?

and ended with

Don't forget your apple pie.

I wish I had a movie of the girl in the pink sweatshirt who knew ALL the words perfectly and got annoyed when her partner messed up. Her little brother was studying hard so as to join the game.

We remarked that these kids would have happily stood in line for hours doing their rhymes over and over and over again. No equipment necessary. No batteries needed. No referee required. Who could ask for better behaved children?

This took me back to the summer of 1960, when I was 11 and Nancy Knott visited her elderly aunt Miss Green, who lived across the street from us. What a godsend! These were the days when we just stayed home for the summer, playing outdoors or otherwise entertaining ourselves until our mothers called us home to supper.

Nancy was from Knoxville, Tennessee, and she was a beautiful charmer, who knew a little bit about everything. She quickly introduced me to the following rhymes, much like those of the Chinese girls:

That's tough.
What's tough?
Life's tough.
What's life?
A magazine.
How much?
Ten cents. (This shows the effect of inflation.)
Haven't got it.
That's tough
....and you start all over again going as fast as you possibly can.

Or a slightly racier one:

Lulu had a steamboat.
The steamboat had a bell.
Lulu went to heaven.
The steamboat went to ...
Hello operator,
Give me #9.
If you disconnect me,
I'll kick you in the ...
Behind the refrigerator,
There lies a broken glass.
Lulu fell upon it
And broke her little ...
Ask me no questions,
I'll tell you no lies.
You bake me cakes,
And I'll bake you pies.

And then there was the impossible:

One day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other.
They drew their swords and shot each other.
The deaf policeman heard the noise,
And came and shot the two dead boys.
And if you don't believe this story's true,
Ask the blind man. He saw it too.

In addition to rhyming the summer away, Nancy Knott taught me a whole repertoire of Heart and Soul and Chopsticks variations that I still play today. She and I sewed together, making identical dropped-waist dresses. Mine was turquoise plaid. Hers was pink plaid. But best of all, she attracted cute boys from blocks away, who all came to my house to play croquet almost every day. We slammed those croquet balls all over my front yard.

I hadn't thought for a long while about that summer so long ago, when Nancy Knott from Knoxville descended on sleepy Panama City and taught us a thing or two.

Think back. Is there a rhyme back there somewhere that you still remember?