The Silver Sage
Are you ready? Come on along and read some homespun poetry as well as a jot and tittle regarding distinguished poets and their works. Gael offers a positive balance of her own nostalgia notes and poetic meanderings with those of others. [Editor's note: Gael no longer contributes to Silver Planet, but we have made her archived blog entries available as a service to our readers.]
School Days
The local kids recently had to register for their high school classes. Students get done in early spring and return to class in mid-August. It made me think about my own high school experience growing up in New England. Getting ready to return to school was always an exciting time for me. Anticipation—as well as autumn—was in the air. It meant a session with a class counselor, then an excursion for new penny loafers and the inevitable plaid skirt! School did not begin until the day after Labor Day, and my mum carefully packed away all white clothing, remonstrating how whites should never be worn after Labor Day.
Did you ever wonder where the song about reading and 'riting and 'rithmetic came from? Perhaps you already know the title was School Days. If not, here is a whit of Silver Sage trivia: School Days was a sentimental vaudeville tune about a mature couple looking back on the past. It was composed by a man named Gus Edwards and featured in a vaudeville play starring old-time song-and-dance man Eddie Cantor. The lyrics were by Will D. Cobb, a most prolific lyricist and poet. Will D. Cobb was a Philadelphian who passed away in New York in 1930.
I think the well-known chorus is a wonderful nostalgia poem:
| School days, school days Dear old Golden Rule days Reading and 'riting and 'rithmetic Taught to the tune of the hick'ry stick You were my queen in calico I was your bashful, barefoot beau You wrote on my slate, "I Love You, Joe" When we were a couple o' kids |
I hope the kids of today, whose “slate” is a computer screen, will look back fondly on their school days. Don’t you?
By Gael Stuart
The Silver Sage Blog
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