O, those 4-H songs

Carolissa was pleasantly surprised by my cold call.

"Another song from 4-H Camp came out of my head," I explained. "See if you remember this one: 'I'll sing you one O, green grow the rushes, O! What is your one O? One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.'"

Carolissa Wylie was the girl every boy fell in love with at Hancock County 4-H Camp. She was slim, tall, pretty, with a sweet personality behind big doe deer eyes. A couple of years ago she began re-connecting with 4-H friends through phone calls and letters. Several of us met for lunch. A great-grandmother now, she still has those big doe eyes.

She wasn't sure she remembered, so I sang more verses: twelve for the twelve apostles, eleven for the eleven went up to heaven, and so on. When I belted out "Three, three, the ri-i-val-als!" her memory finally clicked.

Snatches of the verses and melody had been popping into my mind recently, like "Nine for the nine bright shiners." Could that be right? It didn't make any sense. The song came into focus when I happened to read about British naval officers – characters in a series of sailing ship novels by Patrick O'Brian – singing "Green Grow the Rushes, O!" A web search turned up the verses as recalled by a Brit who learned them from his father, almost exactly as I remember them from 4-H camp 60 years ago. The Brit believes it goes back at least to the 17th century. He called it the greatest of the counting songs, which is high praise because there are a number of them. (Get it? Number of them? Sorry.)

Some verses obviously carry Christian meaning, while others appear to have astronomical or pagan references. (The internet showed me a completely different and hauntingly beautiful song of the same name, from a poem by Scot poet Robert Burns.)

We as teen campers never tried to puzzle out the meaning of lines like "Five for the symbols at your door." We just loved singing it and so many other camp songs.

Not too long ago, my sister Col. Peggy, another old 4-H'er, thought it would be nice to donate some time at a summer camp. From what she and others have told me, there is less singing and the songs are mostly poor pablum. If old songs are sung, they've changed the words. Kids don't sing at school, either, at least according to those I've asked. That is a great shame.

So sad, then, that singing songs such as "Green Grow the Rushes O!" would offend the woke mafia because of references to religion. Gosh, someone might hear that. Same for songs featuring the cartoon violence that so delights kids. We loved to sing about Alice, who was so thin that when she pulled the bathtub plug, "Oh my body oh my soul, there goes Alice down the hole." We sang in character as the girl who puts her head out the window every morning to wave and "go oo-oo-oo to Georgie," but on the second time around, "down comes the window, off rolls my head . . . now I can't go oo-oo-oo to Georgie."

My father-in-law taught Honey as a child to sing "my brother Bill is Fireman Bill 'cause he puts out fires." Dynamite "blew poor Bill right out of sight, but where he goes he'll be all right, 'cause he puts out fires." The "Cannibal King with the big nose ring" was chased across the lake by his angry wife, banging away with a gun. When we sang "She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes" we mimed chopping as we sang the verse about killing the old red rooster when she comes.

I don't think we were mentally scarred by such songs, anymore than we became inured to gun violence by watching Elmer Fudd shoot at that Waskally Wabbit. Congress opens its sessions with a prayer to God, yet campers probably aren't introduced to beautiful songs like "Tell Me Why" because it says "Because God made you, that's why I love you."

Our society is so cowed by the brutal responses to violations of the woke ethos that those in charge self-censor, surrendering without a fight.

My terrible memory for names, faces, places and anniversaries doesn't extend to songs. I have a wealth of camp songs in my head, and do not allow a mediocre singing voice to stop me from singing them at the drop of a hat.

I've taught camp songs to Lamppost Head and The 747, the two grandsons who showed interest. We sing them at breakfast when they sleep over, and on road trips, going through their repertoire from "O, I wish I were a fishy in the sea" to "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt."

Last summer a song that came unexpectedly out of my head goes thusly: "If I had the wings of a turtledove, turtledove, back to 4-H Camp I'd fly, would fly. There I would play with the other kids, other kids. There I'd be willing to die, to die." The melody is an oom-pa German drinking song. The second time through, the last words of each verse change for comic effect, ending with "YOU die!" and everyone pointing to someone else. The 747 especially loves that part.

Carolissa, Johnny Mayhew, Skip Mayhew, Jack Porter and the other old 4-H'ers from those days agree that Hancock County 4-H Camp was the most fun of any time in our lives. The songs were a huge part of it. Singing them now, and especially having young people to share them with, brings back a bit of that unalloyed joy.

Now let's see if Lamppost Head and The 747 can learn the verses to "Green Grow the Rushes, O!"