Pansy Pickren, my second grade teacher in Palatka, Putnam County, Florida (we were deeply into alliteration), taught us "When You and I Were Young, Maggie," but I didn't really understand it until a couple of decades ago. She was big on Stephen Foster,too. We sang "Camptown Races," "Old Black Joe" (with tears in our eyes), "Massa's in the Cold, Cold Ground" -- true gems of antebellum south. Pansy's mother, "Miz" Pickren, taught third grade and expanded our repertoire with "Old Dan Tucker," "Polly-Wolly Doodle," "Li'l Liza Jane," and the like, along with "Tenting Tonight on the Old Campground," and "Just Before the Battle, Mother," the only northern songs that slipped in. "Miz" Pickren was heavily into the Civil War, I guess. She'd probably learned all of those songs as a young girl, when they were brand new. I loved her.

Singing duets with Johnny Sims, the Baptist preacher's son, as we walked to school, I learned the new hits from Gene Autrey (Autry?) like "Gold Mine in the Sky." Johnny also taught me all the dirty words he knew, a vocabulary that held up quite well until I was in my teens.

Palatka was a pretty folksy place.

Sandy