Was his Name-O

The other day, I walked by a child who was playing with one of those talking storybooks that you see so often.

Holly – or Paul – had one of them many years ago. I think it had a Winnie the Pooh motif. In any case, there were a series of buttons on the cover. If you pushed one of them, you heard a particular childhood song.

I think the child from yesterday had something like that.

In any case, I heard some familiar words from my childhood: “There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-O…”

Cringe time.

I have written several times about things I enjoyed from my childhood.  “Warm fuzzies,” if you will. That song is not one of them. In fact, it is one of the things from my childhood that might be considered “a cold prickly.”

I never EVER got the point of that childhood sing-along. It seemed to go on and on forever. So monotonous. Was it supposed to be clever that each time you went a round, you subtracted a letter? And added a clap?

(Disclaimer – If anyone reading this happened to write that childhood song – or if one of your distant relatives did – I apologize in advance for the next few ‘graphs).

I remember, vividly, sitting cross-legged on my bottom on a hard gym floor during bus wait and that monotonous sing-along song was the only thing to entertain me during first bus and second bus?

As if the wait, itself, wasn’t long enough.

The sitting. The singing. (Oh, and the “Ouch, my leg fell asleep again…”). Not a pleasant memory.

I mentioned this venerable sing-along to Holly and Paul and they both agreed they found it to be somewhat annoying as well. I guess that means the ditty hasn’t been updated for the modern generation!

Thinking of Bingo brought back a couple other unpleasant school days memories. One of them is the game referred to as “Heads Up, Seven Up.” Holly said when she was in school, the game was called “Heads Down, Thumbs Up.”

In any case, the point of the game was that seven kids were named to stand at the front of the classroom. Everyone else had to put their heads down (hence the name). At some point, the kids who were ‘it’ fanned out across the room and each one tapped another kid on the head. If you were tapped, you put your hand up.

When you got picked, you had to guess the name of the kid who picked you. If you guessed correctly, you got to participate. If you missed, the game continued. More likely, though, unless one of your friends was at the front of the room, you did NOT get picked.

So, in that way, it was an early example of the “Good Ol’ Boys Network.”

Only when Ed or Wayne got picked to play did I have a shot and vice-versa. And of course, at that early age, there was very rarely gender crossover (unless you had a precocious classmate). So if there were seven girls up front, might as well start daydreaming (of course, five years later, and the dynamic would change…but that’s a story for another time).

In short, if you didn’t have a friend who was ‘it,’ you could really call the game “Heads Down. Nap Time.”

Come to think of it, maybe that was the point?  So I say, “Heads Down. Thumbs Down.”

Another game that I just did not understand was called “Mum Ball.” If nap time was the point of the previous game I mentioned, then “Quiet Time” was the point of this one.

Basically, you sat on desks configured in a circle around your classroom – this must’ve been a wintertime substitute for recess – and threw one of those institutional large red balls around the room. Otherwise, the rules were fairly simple. The thrower had to throw their ball easily and in a catchable fashion (in the area between the recipient’s shoulders and waist). If you didn’t make a good throw, you were out. If the catcher didn’t catch a catchable throw, they were out.

The ‘catch’ to it all, though, was no one could talk while you played the game.

Talk about a ripoff. No “Hey, throw it to me, throw it to me.” No appeal to the teacher on any borderline calls. Not even an “Aw man…” if you were somehow DQ’d.

Just silence.

At that point, I would’ve almost dared someone to bring up the name of Bingo.

JG

Originally posted 4/23/2013