I hated West Side Story. I thought making me read it was one of the stupidest things about the school curriculum. The thing that captured our imaginations about Romeo and Juliette back then was when they took us on a school field trip to see the movie version that came out in the early 1970s.

When I was about seven years old (early 1960s), we had a rhyme that was based on an advertisement for a product called "Beefaroni". It incorporated the name of one of the kids in my class. So basing rhymes on television commercials is not a new thing...

We're having Billy Mahoney
He's made with macaroni
Billy Mahoney's such a treat
Billy Mahoney can't be beat
Hooray! For Billy Mahoney!

I called my son today to ask him if he could remember any of the rhymes from his grade school days for me. He came up with these two (in between studying for final exams for the end of his first semester at college). When he learned these, we were living in a very isolated rural community that had a very strong right-wing gun culture...

Joy to the world
the teacher's dead
I barbequed her head
Don't worry about the body
I flushed it down the potty
And round and round it goes

And this one...

On top of Old Smokey
All covered in snow
I shot my poor teacher
With a quarter pound bow

I went to her funeral
I went to her grave
Some people threw flowers
I threw a grenade

He had another version of this last one, but it didn't rhyme as well.