A woman with two small daughters brought her new kitty into the clinic today. The girls amused themselves by doing hand-clapping games. They knew two verses to "Miss Mary Mack" so I wrote out a third one for them. Their mother looked at it and said, "See? That's the one Grandma was trying to teach you the other day."

When I was in elementary school, EVERYONE did hand-clapping games and knew the rhymes that went with them ("Miss Mary Mack" and the off-color one about Miss Suzy and the steamboat were the most common). We also told each other a lot of ghost stories and urban legends and played creepy games; Bloody Mary, where the ghost is supposed to appear in the bathroom mirror, the hypnosis one that is supposed to make you feel an egg running down your head, Light as a Feather-Stiff as a Board, etc.

I wasn't in school THAT long ago (well, OK, fifteen years). Does anyone here have contact with elementary-school-aged children on a regular basis? Do they still do these things?