I was sitting in church today "listening" to the sermon when this tune goes through my head: "We are marching to Pre-tor-ia, Pre-tor-ia, hooray" and I think "Hey, Pretoria is in South Africa" why do I know this song?

I grew up in suburban New Jersey in the late 1950's early 1960s. It never occurred to me to wonder why did we sing this song about South Africa is NJ in 1960? So, I Google "Marching to Pretoria" and find this site and all these interesting threads. No one explained this to us in fourth grade, of course and it still doesn't answer the question: why teach this song to suburban kids in NJ? I figure I was singing this song in music class during the "Cuban Missle Crisis". Does that make sense?

Thanks for the great info.