Say Say Oh Playmate
Today as I was having my coffee, I found myself humming a strange yet not completely unfamiliar tune. Before I knew it, words had swum out of my murky subconscious and joined the tune. It really took me back. The words went something like this:
Say say oh playmate
Come out and play with me
And bring your dollies three
Climb up my apple tree
Slide down my rainbow
Into my cellar door
And we'll be jolly friends
Forever more 1-2-3-4
There was a strange fourth grade subculture when I was growing up that involved the ability to remember these phrases and combine them with intricate hand moves, always with a partner. Faster and faster the rhyme would go, the clumsy person's double dutch. It seemed back then that if you didn't know all the rhymes and hand gestures, you were a social pariah. What's even weirder than this is the complete and utter transformation that the fourth grade culture seems to have undergone since I was there. I can no more see kids gathered around this kind of innocent activity at recess than I can see an elephant do the Watusi. These days fourth graders are more likely smoking cigarettes, guzzling Boone's Strawberry wine and discussing their latest sexual conquests. This is a scary image for me, the true picture of Childhood's End.
Childhood's End always seemed to me like a place rather than a time. It seemed like you walked along in your childhood until you reached a door marked Childhood's End, and you passed through it, and you were a child no more. For every child this passage was different, happened at different times and under different circumstances, but these days it seems that the door might as well be erected at the end of the birthing canal, so the infant can slide right through childhood and into adult neuroses.
Say say oh enemy
Come out and fight with me
And bring your soldiers three
Climb up my poison tree
Slide down my thornbush
Into my dungeon door
And we'll be enemies
Forever more 1-2-3-4
It's amazing how they all come flooding back to you once you start to remember. Complete with complicated hand claps and little snaps. My personal favorite of the day was the "Great Pepsi Taste" hand clappy-thingie that went along with the ad for Diet Pepsi at the time. "That great pepsi taste, means Diet Pepsi won't go to your waste, now you see it, now you don't, oh Diet Pepsi, one small calorie, now you see it, now you don't" And when did Diet Pepsi have a calorie in it anyway? I guess that's something for another time.
This is not a post of great significance, only insomuch as it illustrates to me the difference between the world when I was growing up and the world as it is today. And as idiotic as those little jingles were, I somehow miss a world when all we could think about at recess was laughing and rhyming and slapping hands with our classmates. The world has moved on.
I leave you with this...
Hello operator, give me number 9
And if you disconnect me, I'll kick you right
Behind the 'frigerator, there was a piece of glass
Miss Susie slipped and fell on it and broke her little
Ask me no more questions, tell me no more lies
The boys are in the bathroom, zipping up their
Flies are in the meadow, the bees are in the park
Miss Susie and her boyfriend are kissing in the
d a r k d a r k d a r k dark dark dark
I guess it's true that we never really forget anything. Not ever.
Say say oh playmate
Come out and play with me
And bring your dollies three
Climb up my apple tree
Slide down my rainbow
Into my cellar door
And we'll be jolly friends
Forever more 1-2-3-4
There was a strange fourth grade subculture when I was growing up that involved the ability to remember these phrases and combine them with intricate hand moves, always with a partner. Faster and faster the rhyme would go, the clumsy person's double dutch. It seemed back then that if you didn't know all the rhymes and hand gestures, you were a social pariah. What's even weirder than this is the complete and utter transformation that the fourth grade culture seems to have undergone since I was there. I can no more see kids gathered around this kind of innocent activity at recess than I can see an elephant do the Watusi. These days fourth graders are more likely smoking cigarettes, guzzling Boone's Strawberry wine and discussing their latest sexual conquests. This is a scary image for me, the true picture of Childhood's End.
Childhood's End always seemed to me like a place rather than a time. It seemed like you walked along in your childhood until you reached a door marked Childhood's End, and you passed through it, and you were a child no more. For every child this passage was different, happened at different times and under different circumstances, but these days it seems that the door might as well be erected at the end of the birthing canal, so the infant can slide right through childhood and into adult neuroses.
Say say oh enemy
Come out and fight with me
And bring your soldiers three
Climb up my poison tree
Slide down my thornbush
Into my dungeon door
And we'll be enemies
Forever more 1-2-3-4
It's amazing how they all come flooding back to you once you start to remember. Complete with complicated hand claps and little snaps. My personal favorite of the day was the "Great Pepsi Taste" hand clappy-thingie that went along with the ad for Diet Pepsi at the time. "That great pepsi taste, means Diet Pepsi won't go to your waste, now you see it, now you don't, oh Diet Pepsi, one small calorie, now you see it, now you don't" And when did Diet Pepsi have a calorie in it anyway? I guess that's something for another time.
This is not a post of great significance, only insomuch as it illustrates to me the difference between the world when I was growing up and the world as it is today. And as idiotic as those little jingles were, I somehow miss a world when all we could think about at recess was laughing and rhyming and slapping hands with our classmates. The world has moved on.
I leave you with this...
Hello operator, give me number 9
And if you disconnect me, I'll kick you right
Behind the 'frigerator, there was a piece of glass
Miss Susie slipped and fell on it and broke her little
Ask me no more questions, tell me no more lies
The boys are in the bathroom, zipping up their
Flies are in the meadow, the bees are in the park
Miss Susie and her boyfriend are kissing in the
d a r k d a r k d a r k dark dark dark
I guess it's true that we never really forget anything. Not ever.
posted by Dana at 12:29 PM
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