It happened, I suspect, before I knew what a big deal it was. I was young enough not to be intimidated by the huge crowd. And it happened at that same Christmas when I questioned the existence of Santa Claus right out loud and in public. (See yesterday's blog.) Maybe my teachers believed that I was able to memorize lots of words. Or maybe they thought I looked the part. Or maybe I was their last choice.
In any case, I was invited to memorize and share a Christmas poem at the Elkhorn Elementary School P.T.A. Christmas program.
Reading the poem today, I have to confess that I think it's utterly bizarre. Yes, I realize that it's a relatively famous poem by a well-known poet. Still, I'm thinking that a better choice could have been made.
The poem is written - and intended to be recited - in a dialect that is hard to describe. Even though I grew up in a small town in Kentucky, I didn't use the language of the poem. Yet I was expected to play it up in my recitation. And in my memory, that's how the poem sounds to me now. Now that I think about it, I vaguely remember wearing overalls and a straw hat. Lest you think I'm making all this up, here's the poem - or at least the part of it that I was asked to recite:
by Eugene Field (1850-1895)
Father calls me William, sister calls me Will,
Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!
Mighty glad I ain't a girl - ruther be a boy,
Without them sashes, curls, an' things that 's worn by Fauntleroy!
Love to chawnk green apples an' go swimmin' in the lake -
Hate to take the castor-ile they give for bellyache!
'Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain't no flies on me,
But jest 'fore Christmas I 'm as good as I kin be!
Got a yeller dog named Sport, sick him on the cat;
First thing she knows she doesn't know where she is at!
Got a clipper sled, an' when us kids goes out to slide,
'Long comes the grocery cart, an' we all hook a ride!
But sometimes when the grocery man is worrited an' cross,
He reaches at us with his whip, an' larrups up his hoss,
An' then I laff an' holler, "Oh, ye never teched me!"
But jest 'fore Christmas I 'm as good as I kin be!
And then old Sport he hangs around, so solemnlike an' still,
His eyes they seem a-sayin': "What's the matter, little Bill?"
The old cat sneaks down off her perch an' wonders what's become
Of them two enemies of hern that used to make things hum!
But I am so perlite an' tend so earnestly to biz,
That mother says to father: "How improved our Willie is!"
But father, havin' been a boy hisself, suspicions me
When, jest 'fore Christmas, I 'm as good as I kin be!
For Christmas, with its lots an' lots of candies, cakes, an' toys,
Was made, they say, for proper kids an' not for naughty boys;
So wash yer face an' bresh yer hair, an' mind yer p's and q's,
An' don't bust out yer pantaloons, and don't wear out yer shoes;
Say "Yessum" to the ladies, and "Yessur" to the men,
An' when they 's company, don't pass yer plate for pie again;
But, thinkin' of the things yer 'd like to see upon that tree,
Jest 'fore Christmas be as good as yer kin be!
Isn't it funny how the past is never really past? Isn't it funny how the past is always part of the present?
And when you think about it, that's a really good thing . . .