"Goody, goody gumdrops." It was the 1970's kid-equivalent of being too cool to care. Things we said and did, and where the expression or event even came from are sometimes nuggets of wisdom lost to time. But sometimes, they sneak up in memories and make you want to investigate... Notice anything familiar?
Detroit, circa 1972 via Uncle Joey:
(everyone puts his ratty tennis-shoed foot in the middle and then...)
Eenie meenie, dipsy deeny, high pone tusk. Tusk in, tusk out, tusk around the water spout. Have a cherry, have a plum. have a stick of chewing gum. My mother said to pick the very best one and you are not...it!
Detroit, circa 1974 via childhood friend Julie Walters:
Kindergarten babies, first grade tots,
Second grade angels, third grade snots,
Fourth grade peaches, fifth grade plums,
And all the rest are dirty bums!
On the way (skipping, running or jumping) to Stellwagen Elementary School 1970-1975:
Step on a crack: break your mother's back.
Step on a line: break your father's spine.
Is that why every detail in every square of concrete sidewalk is so familiarly etched into my memory even today? The sidewalks had their own personalities back then. I knew the various patches of concrete so well. Some had a friendly, smooth appearance and an inviting appeal to drag an old piece of chalk across for hopscotch. Some were more mottled, cracked, or heaved up with elm tree roots and were to be avoided when skipping, jumping rope up and down the block, or racing Big Wheels or Krazy Kars. Some had cracks or dents that resembled faces and were a comfort knowing they remained the same season after season.
I wonder if low-to-the-ground things and the ground itself are still familiar to today's kids, or if the concrete jungle I grew to know intimately, was just my own childhood way of feeling at home in my surroundings? Do kids avoid cracks and lines to save their parents, have jump rope songs about missing links and being out, or do put-your-foot-in-the-middle rhymes to decide who's "it"?
Maybe today's kids have new and improved singy-songs that have a basis in fact, or fair decision-making methods that are more articulate and modern. Well, you know what I say to that?
Goody goody gumdrops.
