Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Sharing Meetings

[David Heimann (heimann]

	I sometimes find it very interesting what very serious topics some 
little ditties and nursery rhymes refer to:


        "Ring Around The Rosy" -- Megadeaths due to the bubonic plague
        "Six a Song of Sixpence" -- Spies sending secret information
	"Rock A Bye Baby" -- Damage to a cradle (and most likely the baby 
inside)
	"Eenie Meenie Miney Mo" -- The next line in the original version 
is *not* "Catch a tiger by the toe"


	There's also the Negro Spirituals -- I am sure that "Let My People 
Go" does not really refer to the Children of Israel!


Regards,
David Heimann
JP Cohousing



Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:33:46 -0500
From: Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
Subject: [C-L]_ Sharing Meetings
To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Message-ID: <C5AFD65A.6B70%sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="US-ASCII"

<snip>

I began thinking about this again on Martin Luther King Day when my two
grand-daughters came home from school singing what can only be called
ditties singing happy birthday to Dr. Martin Luther King to the tune, I
think, of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, or something like that. The second
was about "If you miss me in the back of the bus, I'll be upfront just
sitting there" and goes on with verses about "If you're missing me picking
cotton in Mississippi, I'll be up a the law school library." Not exactly the
words.

The school had done an excellent job on explaining the importance of Dr.
Martin Luther King but not really how bad things were before him. I had to
explain Rosa Parks -- that made no sense to them at all.

Having lived through all of that, it was very strange to hear ditties sung
about it. They attend a school that is at least 90% African American,
including the teachers, 5%+ African from the embassies in DC, and the rest
Hispanic and European, so it's evidence of a new stage.

It was an interesting experience to try to explain life in the 1950s, 50
years later. And the sharing of various views of it would be revealing and
bonding.

Sharon
---
Sharon Villines
In Washington DC
Where all Roads Lead to Martin Luther King