I could be dating myself right now, but back in the day at my gradeschool I looked forward to recess and free time to just hang with my besties and talk about nonsense like what’s for lunch, who’s that new kid?, and other important ten year old topics. We were sent outside to get some fresh air on the parking lot, I don’t recall a playground, per se.
The cool kids hung out around the corner of the building doing who knows what, I was never adventurous enough to go find out. I was more of the nerdy choir type, severely naive about life beyond my little microcosm of friends. We skipped rope, played that string game where you put a loop of yarn on your fingers and passed it back and forth creating bridges and amorphous over under slings. If we did it just right it could go on indefinitely but someone always messed up and we’d have to start it all over again. There was the ankle loop thingie that went on one leg with a bell that we swung around and jumped over. And hackysacks.
There was a song, too. A fun rhyming ditty with a clever double entende at the end of each verse. It felt silly and edgy for us almost saying a bad word(!). My best friend had a sister a grade older than us and we were like the three musketeers, inseparable during those years. She used to love singing ‘Miss Suzy had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell, Miss Suzy went to heaven, the steamboat went to hell=o operator, please give me number nine, if you know you know. To this day she still knows all the verses, as recently commented on a social media post.
I remember loving the linguistic gymnastics of that song and how I thought it was so clever. Words have always fascinated me, especially when they twist and turn and tickle your brain. I find myself playing all those word games with my grandson. We were arting at the table one day playing with stamps and markers, and I started stamping some words on an old envelope. I was just messing around, alternating colors, when I had a little verse about my little dude. He smiled so big as I sang to him, delighted. Each time we would get the art supplies out he’d find that slip of paper in our stash (grandma has to keep everything, you know) and ask me to read it to him.
He and I have such a close connection, I love being his grandma. He loves the cartoons I draw, especially the bee, it has been a really special bond, he loved that the silly song included one, so of course I had to do something fun with it. I bought a stuffed bumblebee toy, a Minecraft bee – squarish – too cute to pass up for some random reason, and as I was waiting to see him I had an idea. Through the magic of the internet I was able to find little recordable units that can hold like 30 seconds of a message. I recorded his song, and then I opened a seam on the bumblebee toy and poked the little plastic unit into the stuffing, and sewed him back up.
Now he has a way to hear me sing to him whenever he wants. He just presses the bee butt and this is what he hears:
There was a little Finley
As cute as he could be
He stuck his finger in a flower
And got stung by a-
Bee careful in the garden
Watch out for all the bugs
They won’t hurt you
If they had arms they’d
Just give you a-
Hug your mama everyday
And hug your daddy too
Be kind at school
Be good to friends,
Remember I LOVE YOU