I've been looking at old rhymes and nursery stories lately and I ran across this website devoted to street games.
In the discussions I found this which brought back a lot of memories:
Miss Lucy had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell, Miss Lucy went to heaven, and the steamboat went to
HELLO operator, give me number 9 and if you disconnect me I will chop off your behind
BEHIND the refridgerator, there was a piece of glass, Miss Lucy sat upon it and it went right up her...
ASK me no more questions, tell me no more lies, the boys are in the bathroom pulling down their flies
FLIES are in the meadow, the bees are in the park, the boys and girls are kissing in the
dark-dark-dark
They also had this version as well as multiple variations on both:
Miss Lucy had a baby.
She named it Tiny Tim.
She put it in the bathtub to see if it could swim.
It drank up all the water.
It ate up all the soap.
It tried to eat the bathtub but it wouldn't go down it's throat.
Miss Lucy called the doctor.
Miss Lucy called the nurse.
Miss Lucy called the lady with the alligator purse.
Mumps! said the doctor.
Measles! said the nurse.
Chicken pox! said the lady with the alligator purse.
Get out you crazy doctor.
Get out you crazy nurse.
Get out you crazy lady with the alligator purse.
I knew only parts of these as a child, or at least I don't remember the whole thing or they get swirled together as a mix of rhymes. I don't know if it is my faulty memory or if we had some variation that combined bits and pieces of rhymes that were popular in other regions and other times.
I learned these from other girls in the neighborhood and at school, but from the postings, it's clear they had been around for several decades. Did other mothers teach them to thier children? Or older siblings? How were they passed down? Maybe I need to teach them to Nora.
Say, say, oh Playmate
Come out and play with me
And with my dollies three
Climb up my apple tree
Slide down my rainbow
Into my pot of gold
And we'll be jolly friends
Forever more, more, more-more-more
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Miss Lucy
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5 comments:
I remember all of those too. I think I learned them at school; I certainly don't remember my parents reading them to me....
Do you remember the Gladys one?
Gladys, where are you going?
Upstairs, to take a bath...
Gladys, with legs like toothpicks, and a neck like a giraffe, raffe, raffe, raffe..
Gladys..(something) stepped in the bathtub and pulled out the plug....
I can't remember the rest, except it ends in "glug, glug, glug" with skinny Gladys somehow disappearing down the drain.
Kind of terrifying, actually.
I don't remember Gladys! Nor did it have a different name (like Miss Lucy is also miss suzy) but, maybe it was a southern rhyme or an Arkansas rhyme? Who makes these up?
I remember Miss Lucy as Miss Mary... but, hey, as long as it can incorporate sly innuendo I'm all for it!
Ah, but Miss Mary was Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack
All Dressed in Black, Black, Black!
Yes, but I remember some innuendo as well... we were from Arkansas, where there weren't a lot of Lucys but plenty of Marys...usually as Mary Anns or Mary Lous or Mary Pats or Mary Beths... so perhaps my exposure was to an adaptation that was regionally specific? Who knows?
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