We are experiencing a good long spring rain.  The kind of rain that finishes melting snow, greens the grass and waters the gardens to wake up the flowers.

I lived across the border in what is now called Aroostook Village from 1956 to 1958 and  I still have a few memories of that time.  In our climate here we get summer rains and often it’s still warm enough to remain outside (especially if you are a kid).  My childhood playmate back then was my cousin, Karen, who lived about a mile or so south of our grandmother’s house where I was living.  I would walk down to play with her and we would go up behind her house to play in an abandoned homestead.  It provided us with shelter when it rained and I can remember singing:

It’s raining, it’s pouring
The old man is snoring
Bumped his head and went to bed
And couldn’t get up in the morning

Another time we got caught outside in a thunderstorm.  Karen’s cousin, Doug, lived just up the hill from my grandmother’s and we often played anywhere and everywhere in between.  This particular time we got wet and I smelled something… it was me and it kind of smelled like something burning… Doug said I had been hit by lightning – what did I know?  I was only six!  I ran home crying and hid under my grandmother’s kitchen table.  When asked why I was scared I repeated what Doug had said.  The grownups just laughed indulgently and told me I was smelling my wet woolen sweater.  But ever since I have been terrified by thunder and lightning.

Of all the posts I’ve written since I started this blog in 2002 (six years!), the one that has over time generated the greatest number of comments is a memory rediscovered after a great many years.  Apparently when people “google” the name of the song or any part of its lyrics my site is right up there!  At any rate, I want to repost so that the post can still be found.  Enjoy!

When I was in the 8th grade, one of my electives was a chorus class.  Our teacher had been teaching us old traditional tunes, and this particular lullaby was one of them, which is how I happened to know it.  The song was “Sleep, Kentucky Babe” and my guess is that 98% of the people who read this (all 2 of them, no doubt) will go “huh?”.  When I said it was old, I meant it.  The song is from the turn of the century — the LAST century.

My youngest brother is 11 years younger than I, so he would have been about two years old then.  I am the oldest of six kids, three boys and three girls.  At that time we were living in a little three-bedroom, one-bath house in Sacramento.  We kids were split between two bedrooms.  We girls had bunkbeds and a single bed and shared two drawers each in a six-drawer upright dresser.  The two older boys shared bunkbeds and Bob, the baby, was in a crib.  Poor Bob, he was in that crib until he was five!

I”m not sure if my dad was still working for the Salvation Army or was driving a school bus at that particular time, but my mom was an RN working at one of the Sutter Hospitals.  I think she was working the swing shift then, either part- or full-time.  Dad would make sure we all got bathed and put to bed and Bob was always first.  Sometimes I would sit with him while he was falling asleep, stroking his brow so he would close his eyes and I would sing to him:

“Skeeters am a-hummin’ on the honeysuckle vine,
Sleep, Kentucky babe.
Sandman am a-comin’ to this little babe of mine,
Sleep, Kentucky babe.
Silv”ry moon am shinin’ from the heavens up above.
Bob-o-link am pinin’ for it’’s little lady love.
You is mighty lucky, babe from old Kentucky,
Close your eyes and sleep. Fly away (fly away).
Fly away, Kentucky babe, fly away to rest.
Fly away (fly away).
Lay your sleepy little head on your Daddy’’s breast.
Close your eyes and sleep.
Close your eyes and sleep.”

He was so young then I doubt he has any memory of it. And until I got it jogged yesterday, it had totally escaped mine.

Note: The complete original lyrics and author information can be found here.