Those lines have stuck with me for 45 years. I sing that damn song in the shower. It's a wonderful song. I must admit, however, that I'd never been able to remember the stanza about how Bonebags ruins the narrator's marriage prospects.

I wonder if children sing in elementary school anymore. I'm 54 years old, and I remember dozens of the songs we sang. They come to me all the time. It drives my wife crazy. I should explain that I attended the public elementary school in Montrose, California, while she attended a Roman Catholic elementary school in Potsdam, New York. While they were praying, we were singing. We had a songbook, which contained songs from all over the world. There was even a Japanese coal miners' song, called "Hiyamo Yatana." The first line was, "Each morning, at the dawn, down I go/ down into the mine so cold and damp." We had our favorites, and "Hiyamo Yatana" wasn't one of them. Our teachers made us learn new songs, but then let us sing the ones we loved. "Old Bonebags" was a big hit with us.

In long retrospect, I believe that singing songs with others developed my sense of both the rhythms and the expressive possibilities of our language. I'd love to get my hands on the songbooks we used in those years.