We were forbidden nothing. If my mother found it obnoxious she'd just tell us to shut up. Usually this only occurred when she had been driving four screaming, fighting kids for an hour.

We sang things like "Red River Valley" and "Down in the Valley" and "Comin' round the mountain" and "Bastard King of England" and "Golden slippers" and "Darktown strutters' ball" in the car and at home. We had no idea (really!) what a "Darktown Strutter" was or even what "Darktown" was. We thought it was someplace far away, like near Moline or Chicago.

I have to admit, though, that we were pretty insular....


(I'm just kidding about the BK of E. I didn't learn that until I was, oh, 12 or 13.)