School days, school days, dear old golden rule days

Here are the rules for how the game of London Bridge Is Falling Down was played when I was a child many years ago in Mansfield, Texas:

1. Two people decide to form a game of London Bridge Is Falling Down (as opposed to, say, Mother, May I? or Red Rover, Red Rover) and appoint themselves as the leaders.

2. The two put their heads together privately and decide what each side will “be” but this information is not shared with the others. Typically, one side might be a golden apple and the other a silver pear, or one side might be a white stallion and the other a shimmering unicorn.

3. The two people form a bridge with their arms and everyone begins singing “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down” and so forth, and everyone marches under (over?) the bridge. When the song reaches “my fair LADY!” the two leaders’ arms (that’s four arms in all, people) come down on the word LADY! and “capture” a person.

4. Whilst everyone else waits patiently, the two leaders take the captured prisoner off to one side, out of earshot of the others, and the prisoner is asked, “Would you rather be a golden apple or a silver pear?” or whatever (the possibilities are endless. In a 21st-century, politically correct version of this game, for example, the question might be, “Would you rather be kissed by Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie?”) .

5. When the prisoner has made his or her choice, it is revealed to him or her which team leader he or she has chosen and he or she lines up behind said team leader, putting his or her arms (his or her own arms, I mean) on the team leader’s waist.

6. The now-expanded “bridge” returns to the group.

7. Steps 3 through 6 are repeated until every marcher has become a prisoner and has decided whether to be a golden apple, a silver pear, a white stallion, a shimmering unicorn, the object of Brad Pitt’s affections, or Angelina Jolie’s and has lined up on one side or the other.

8. Finally, a great tug-of-war game ensues between the two sides until one side loses or Miss Erma Nash, the principal, comes out from her office and stands at the schoolhouse door waving a white towel to indicate that recess is over and it’s time to return to class.

As a bonus on this trip down memory lane, I end this post by revealing the erroneous version of the song “School Days” we sang:

School days, school days,
Dear old golden rule days.
Readin’ and Writin’ and ’Rithmetic
Taught to the tune of a hickory stick.
You were my queen in calico,
I was your bashful, barefoot beau
When you rode on my sleigh
“I love you so,”
When we were a couple of kids.

Did you spot the error?

Yes, of course! Riding on a sleigh is what you do in “Jingle Bells.” We should have sung “When you wrote on my slate” but we didn’t know what slates were in my little corner of the world. We had tablets of lined paper that our mammas bought at Wynn & Cabaniss, Sell’s, or Curry’s grocery store.

Today’s kids, on the other hand, don’t know what a hickory stick is. It’s their loss. Or maybe ours.

Thus ends another fascinating glimpse into the dear, dead days beyond almost beyond recall.

P.S. -- Today would have been my father’s 108th birthday. The photograph above is not of my father, but of Miss Erma Nash, our principal, who seemed 108 to us.

P.P.S. -- I received an e-mail from an old school friend, Fred Stone, class of 1959 (one year behind me) . He takes issue with my saying that Miss Erma waved a white towel to signal end of recess. He is almost certain it was her little white lace hankie. That would be more in character, I admit. I stand corrected.

It was Heraclitus, I think

...who said in the fifth century B.C., “The only permanent thing is change,” only he said it in Greek, of course, unless he didn’t say it at all, which is also a possibility. And if he didn’t say it at all, he said something very much like it: “No man steps in the same river twice” -- except it turns out he didn’t say that either. But “The only permanent thing is change” is a fair summation of what he is supposed to have said or not said, if you get my drift. So much for my exhaustive research.

I have been thinking of Heraclitus the last few mornings when I have taken Jethro out for his daily constitutionals around dawn. Dawn itself changes every day, being a little later each morning as our Earth moves around in its orbit, imperceptibly, and the direct rays of the sun at its zenith get a little farther south each day toward the Tropic of Capricorn because of the 23-and-a-half degree tilt of Earth’s axis. And when the direct rays of the sun at its zenith reach the Tropic of Capricorn, they will reverse themselves and start to move northward and dawn will become a little earlier each morning once again until the Earth is on the opposite side of its orbit and the direct rays of the sun at its zenith reach the Tropic of Cancer, when the whole 365-and-one-quarter-days cycle begins again.

I know too much astronomical trivia for my own good.

Anyway, as I was saying, I’ve been taking Jethro out around dawn and gazing up into the sky at a time when it isn’t night any more but it really isn’t day yet either. And do you know what I see?

Four lights.

The waning moon, the planet Venus, the dog star Sirius, and -- high overhead -- the planet Jupiter.

I know, to quote Carl Sagan, that there are “billions and billions” of stars out there, some of which, if I had ventured outdoors an hour earlier, I could have seen plainly. And even though they were all still there, I couldn’t see them at all. And had I waited another hour, even the four lights I did see would have been obscured in the light of old Sol.

You just know I’m going to make a Christian comment here.

Here goes:

In a universe where everything is changing constantly, where even rivers change in the length of time it takes to put your foot in, take it out, and put it in again, where one day Angelina Jolie is going to marry Brad Pitt and the next day she’s not, I’m so glad that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8) and that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variation or shadow of turning (James 1:17).

Yes, I am.

(Image from stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/oricma-p.html)

Melodrama, anyone?

Ever wonder what people did for entertainment before there was television? Before there was radio? Before there were movies? Well, in the late Victorian era, they sat around weeping into their hankies reading stuff you would not believe, like the following unforgettable saga of Bessie and her Basil.


CURFEW MUST NOT RING TONIGHT
by Rose Hartwick Thorpe (1850-1939)

Slowly England’s sun was setting o’er the hilltops far away,
Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day;
And its last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair,--
He with steps so slow and weary; she with sunny, floating hair;
He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful, she, with lips all cold and white,
Struggling to keep back the murmur, “Curfew must not ring to-night!”

“Sexton,” Bessie’s white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old,
With its walls tall and gloomy, moss-grown walls dark, damp and cold,--
“I’ve a lover in the prison, doomed this very night to die
At the ringing of the curfew, and no earthly help is nigh.
Cromwell will not come till sunset;” and her lips grew strangely white,
As she spoke in husky whispers, “Curfew must not ring to-night!”

“Bessie,” calmly spoke the sexton (every word pierced her young heart
Like a gleaming death-winged arrow, like a deadly poisoned dart),
“Long, long years I’ve rung the curfew from that gloomy, shadowed tower;
Every evening, just at sunset, it has tolled the twilight hour.
I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right:
Now I’m old, I will not miss it. Curfew bell must ring to-night!”

Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow,
As within her secret bosom, Bessie made a solemn vow.
She had listened while the judges read, without a tear or sigh,
“At the ringing of the curfew, Basil Underwood must die.”
And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright;
One low murmur, faintly spoken. “Curfew must not ring to-night!”

She with quick step bounded forward, sprang within the old church-door,
Left the old man coming slowly, paths he’d trod so oft before.
Not one moment paused the maiden, But with eye and cheek aglow,
Staggered up the gloomy tower, Where the bell swung to and fro;
As she climbed the slimy ladder, On which fell no ray of light,
Upward still, her pale lips saying, “Curfew shall not ring to-night!”

She has reached the topmost ladder, o’er her hangs the great dark bell;
Awful is the gloom beneath her, like the pathway down to hell.
See! the ponderous tongue is swinging; ’tis the hour of curfew now,
And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath, and paled her brow.
Shall she let it ring? No, never! Her eyes flash with sudden light,
As she springs, and grasps it firmly: “Curfew shall not ring to-night!”

Out she swung,-- far out. The city seemed a speck of light below,--
There twixt heaven and earth suspended, as the bell swung to and fro.
And the sexton at the bell-rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell,
Sadly thought that twilight curfew rang young Basil’s funeral knell.
Still the maiden, clinging firmly, quivering lip and fair face white,
Stilled her frightened heart’s wild throbbing: “Curfew shall not ring tonight!”

It was o’er, the bell ceased swaying; and the maiden stepped once more
Firmly on the damp old ladder, where, for hundred years before,
Human foot had not been planted. The brave deed that she had done
Should be told long ages after. As the rays of setting sun
Light the sky with golden beauty, aged sires, with heads of white,
Tell the children why the curfew did not ring that one sad night.

O’er the distant hills comes Cromwell. Bessie sees him; and her brow,
Lately white with sickening horror, has no anxious traces now.
At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands, all bruised and torn;
And her sweet young face, still hagggard, with the anguish it had worn,
Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eyes with misty light.
“Go! your lover lives,” said Cromwell. “Curfew shall not ring to-night!”

Wide they flung the massive portals, led the prisoner forth to die,
All his bright young life before him. Neath the darkening English sky,
Bessie came, with flying footsteps, eyes aglow with lovelight sweet;
Kneeling on the turf beside him, laid his pardon at his feet.
In his brave, strong arms he clasped her, kissed the face upturned and white,
Whispered, “Darling, you have saved me, curfew will not ring to-night.”

(From Ringing ballads, including Curfew must not ring tonight, Rose Hartwick Thorpe, 1887)


I see the young Susan Lucci as Bessie, the young Brad Pitt as Basil, Winston Churchill as the sexton, and Margaret Thatcher as Cromwell.