Didn't see this thread when it first went around as I wasn't a Mudcatter, yet. One thing that struck me immediately. Most of the names of the folks who responded are unfamiliar to me, and I've been on here three or four years. They come and they go.

My mother was the singer in our family. Myt father rarely sang, although he surprised me when he was in his eighties by suddenly launching into Softly and Tenderly (which I'd never heard him or my mother sing.) Mom mostly sang hymns and turn of the century popular songs, with a liberal sprinkling of the current hits of the 40's, which we all sang. Some of the most frequently sung hymns were In the Garden, Jesus Loves Me, The Little Brown Church in the Dell (which I visited once as an adult) and all the Christmas carols. Her tour de force was Stay In Your Own Back Yard, which now is politically incorrect. It was our favorite song because we could identify with the little black child who was taunted by the white kids in the neighborhood. We weren't black but we all knew tormented.
Turn of the century songs were sung throughout our neighborhood around pianos: And the Band Played On, K-K-K-K-Katie, The Man On the Flying Trapeze, A Bicycle Built For Two, In the Good Old Summertime, and on and on.

Those may not have been "the" days my friend, but they'll pass for them.

Jerry