"Mairzy-Doats..." and Other Swinging Songs

Driving down the road the other day, I was suddenly amused and taken back to my childhood days up on Tucker Ridge with the strains of an old song from way back then. I started singing along with the still familiar lyrics:

"Mairzy doats

And dozy doats

and little lamsy divy..."

Remember that silly ditty from way back when? We sang it and sang it as kids. At least, that's what I thought we were singing. The rest of it went: "and kiddley divy too, wouldn't you?"

'Made absolutely no sense, even when you knew the real words. It wasn't supposed too. It was just another one of those famous English "nonsense rhymes," having no meaning other than to have fun.

Without TV, way back in the dark ages of the 30's-40's, we kids listened to the radio - battery operated. "The Lone Ranger and His faithful companion, Tonto," came on at 7:30 Monday's, Wednesday's and Friday's. Others were: "Roy Rogers and the Trail Riders," "Red Ryder and Little Beaver," "Jack Armstrong, the All American Hero," - he ate Wheaties - "Inner Sanctum." (that one scarred the begeebers out of me,) and the "no one knows what evil lurks in the hearts of man" man, "The Shadow." He knew. Oh, and the "Green Hornet."

Our imaginations made our own pictures of the people, scenes and actions, rather than having it all spelled out for us on the 23" screen. Without the actor in front of us, we, ourselves, became the "Masked Rider with his horse, Silver."

And then there were the songs. Songs to sing - and sing and sing. My favorite spot for singing was in my swings. Grampa Roy had made me two. One was in the big maple tree between the farm house and his work shop. This was my summer, sunny days swing.

The other one was hung from a beam in the barn. This was for rainy days and cold weather days, like now.

Grampa Roy had made different size seats with notched v's in the ends to fit in the looped rope. One of the seats was extra special. Grampa had mounted a tractor seat on the board. It was top heavy and hard to get situated into without it, and me, toppling before I got a good swing a-going. And when I got off, I had to slow the swing down to just before topple speed and jump off far enough out front to land out of heels-way of the seat as it came tumbling off the rope.

I spent countless hours of swinging and singing, literally, to the rafters. The barn echoed with wobbling strains of "You are my sunshine/my only sunshine/you make me hap...py/when skies are gray," and "Give me land/lots of land/under starry skies above/don't fence me in," or "Dan, can't you see/that big green tree/ where the water's running free/and it's waiting there for you and me....co-ool, clear, wa-ter."

And then there was "Mairzy Doats." Translation: "Mares eat oats/and does eat oats/and little lambs eat ivy./A kid'll eat ivy too/wouldn't you?"

You don't hear kids singing much these days. Who can understand the lyrics, even after translation? I can't think of any that'd make for a decent swinging song.

Thoreau's admonition to "Simplify, simplify..." comes to mind in the grocery store when I'm standing in front of shelves lined with dozens of brands of the same product. If all I want is a box of garbage bags, it can take a half hour to choose between the colors, sizes, strengths, quantity,comparative prices, etc..

Today's Super shopping markets have nothing on the old-time country stores. The country store offered even more services than the sprawling monolithic grocery-hardware-drug store of today, and you didn't need a motorized cart to get from one end to the other.

I don't swallow the "woman's work is much easier today" jargon that we're supposed to believe.

Even shopping was easier at the country store. If you needed laundry soap, you simply picked up a box of laundry soap - out of a choice of maybe three brands. Remember Rinso Blue, Oxydol and Ivory Snow? Now, each brand has a dozen different kinds and sizes, and there are seemingly a hundred brands. It can be a major decision to just get a box of soap.

Up on the farm, Saturday morning was go-to-town morning. Grampa Roy would get out the Ford V-8, Grammie would get her fresh made butter (Friday was churning day,) to trade with, and we'd set off down the Ridge for town.

Usually we'd go to either Springfield or Prentis, both about seven miles from the farm. Occasionally, we'd make a really big day of it and go all the way to Lincoln, 20 miles away. (Grammie also had an egg business and would trade them in Lincoln.)

Usually, though, we'd go to Springfield or Prentis. Prentis had only one general store and Springfield had four. All of the stores provided just about everything you could need. Butterfield's, at the four corners in Springfield, was everything you've ever seen depicted about the old country store. I can still see the proprietor, with his white apron, sweeping the dust and tracked in dirt across the wooden floor boards and out the door.

Back inside, in the middle of the store, was the big pot-bellied stove and hugged up next to it, the cracker barrel with the checker board on top. Groceries and dry goods lined the shelves round and about the store.

Up the street aways were Harry Burr's and Hiram Johnson's, and going towards Carrol, down in a little valley, was Tolman's where Grampa and my brother, Larry, took strawberries to sell.

Butterfield's also served as the Post Office, and you got your hair cuts out back in Burr's. One section of the store was full of clothing as well as shoes and boots. (Shoes came in black or brown.) Colorful bolts of cloth, including calico and gingham,  were stacked up on shelves in between.

Groceries and such were on the other side. Hardware and grains in another section and you filled up at the gas pumps outside.

The old saying, "if we don't have it, you don't need it," may have derived from the country stores like Butterfield's and Burr's and Johnson's.

We weren't barraged in our homes with television commercials cajoling us to buy everything and anything. You got what you needed, as opposed to what you wanted, and went home. Simplicity. And you never even had to buy gargbage bags! Things didn't come packaged in plastic, fancy printed backings and such. If you bought a comb, that's what you got. A comb. No packaging to be disposed of. Left over food went to the animals: cats, dog, pigs. And with the later, it came back to you in the form of chops and roasts - the ultimate recycling machine.

Burnable stuff went into the stove. What few items were left, like empty bottles from Father John's Tonic, went into the farm dump. This took up a very small area - maybe 5-6 feet diameter, and eventually went back to to the land - and became a great treasure trove for bottle hunters!

Butterfield's, Burr's and Johnson's are long gone, but there are still some country stores here and there in Maine that have changed little.

Indeed,  after spending a quarter century outside Maine, living all over this country, I came on back t'home. I now live in a little town of just under 700 pretty neat folk. We have a small post Office where I've never had to wait in line and only one store that is very like the old country stores of my childhood. I do 90% of my (grocery/hardware/bird-squirrel food/gas/etc.,) shopping, there. It may cost a few pennies more for some things at the village store, but I save more than that by not taking the 20 mile round trip into town to the big supermarket. (Records show it costs and average of 75 cents per mile (gas, wear & tear) to run a car. Plus, I don't come home with ten things I didn't mean to get in the first place.) I can also get a great meal down back. They make the best corn chowder - and lasagna - and...well, it's almost like going back to Tucker Ridge. the only thing missing is the checker board.

You might not be able to go back home again, but you can come darn close.                     marion