Summer Fun - Writing Silly Limericks with My Grandson Adam

When I was a student in Poland, high school or college, I had to work extra hard during the year, since I attended two schools simultaneously, regular high school with math-physics profile, and music high school in the afternoons. Most days, I left home at 7:30am and got back at 8pm or so, taking a tram from one school to another. I only had time for serious reading, assigned novels or textbooks, and  for working on projects and studying for exams.  

But as soon as school was out in the middle of June, fun reading began.  For summer vacations I travelled to the homes of my grandparents in two Polish villages, Trzebieszow near Lukow in Podlasie region north west of Lublin and Bielewicze near Grodek Bialostocki 10 km from the Soviet border.  There, I read summer novels, fantasy, science fiction, and romances in that order, and lots of silly periodicals, like Przekroj with their light-weight stories and fun news tid-bits.  The "summer is for fun" reading mode ended by September 1, the start day of the next school year.  

Fast forward to today. I do not have the time to ever use up my vacation days. At one point I did not accrue any vacation days for the whole year, fixed at 240 hours. I can take a day or two off here and there, but a whole week, month or two months? Never! There is so much to do and so many things I'm responsible for.  Then, on weekends and in the evenings, I do my own volunteer work, presiding over two nonprofit organizations, publishing books, organizing poetry readings and other events...  So the year is a blur of work, work, work... with some small intermissions of gardening, walks in the park, or day trips to the beach... Not much "light-weight" stuff is going on. 

But these moments of taking the mind off the difficult challenges of life and the endless stream of daily responsibilities - I must, I must, I must...  are so precious and delightful. Recently, I spent two afternoons with my 5.5 year old grandson, Adam. On the first day, he asked me where was the "long noses" book - which is Edward Lear 's set of funny limericks with grotesque drawings for illustrations. Since I did not have it with me, I explained what a limerick is and made-up an example, that I completed with Adam's help. He then proceeded to creating a series of limericks on his own. On another day, as we were walking back from the park, I was on the roll singing children's songs in Polish to the baby, 9 months old Aurelia. Then, I switched to my favorite American nonsense song: "There was an old lady..." Adam promptly added four more stanzas, and now the song is much longer. Enjoy!

Grandma and 3-year old Adam on the beach, Manhattan Beach, 2019

My first sample limerick used the location from Edward Lear's book plus, of course, an absurd long-nose story: 

There was an old man of Timbuktu

who did not know what to do

        so he pulled on his nose

        and made it a hose,

this old man of Timbuktu.

A Box of Limericks by 5.5 year old Adam 

I explained to Adam that a limericks has five lines, two in pairs and an extra that wraps it up, the first two are a set-up and description of status quo, the next two - action and result, and the final line the conclusion, or morale of the story. Then Adam helped making up the following limerick, by adding the middle lines, starting from the kitten  in the second line:

There was a little girl in the city

who really wanted a kitten.

       When the kitten said "meow"

       she did not know how

so she left the kitten in the city.

That was good, so Adam moved on to his own. You have to admit, the boy has imagination:

There was a little boy with a snake

that had a terrible tummy ache.

           And he put it in a cage

           so it did not eat his page.

That little boy with a snake.

Now Adam was on the roll and came up with this:

There was an old man in a plane

who ate all of his candy cane.

           He made his nose too long

           and was completely wrong.

This silly old man in a plane. 

As you see we are still in the "long-nose" subject matter that seems to be pre-eminent in the limerick genre for Adam, taught that by absurd illustrations in Edward Lear book of nonsense rhyme. . . 

So he moved on to another idea.  We had a discussion about the middle lines in the next limerick, since I wanted them to be slightly less scatological, you know, the toilet humor that little boys revel in:

There was a young man who was smart,

so he always wanted to fart.

         His farts were smelly

         and he peed on his belly.

This young man who was smart.

I thought maybe we should say in the middle something less gross:

          he ate too much jelly

          so his farts were smelly

But Adam was adamant about the wording, and he'd have none of that. So there.  

At this point in time, I started writing down the limericks Adam made up, so he took a crayon and wrote another one in shorthand (just some letters per word), with his own illustrations:

There was a young man called Candy Cane

that he saw a big hurricane

          and he lost his sock

           as he went for a walk

This young man in the hurricane.

The young man had just one sock on in the picture, of course. Not surprisingly, this limerick and the next one that Adam made up were variant of the "candy cane in the plane" limerick. Children like stretching their fun, by creating variants of a pleasant or amusing experience. This is one of the secrets of children's playing games. Adults seem to lose this talent. 

There was an old man on the plane

who was the travelers' bane

          for his ran out of his chair

          and bumped the pilot everywhere

this silly old man on the plane.

Adam forgot to insert the second line, so I suggested adding the travelers' bane since it went well with attacking the pilot. Adam approved, so here it is. 

Finally, since we had played a Totoro Mail Service earlier - with a plush Totoro delivering a FedEx envelope with a picture of a robot helper and a crocodile inside - the Totoro appeared in the limerick as well, also illustrated by Adam.

There was a Totoro and a boy

who wanted to find a good  toy.

           They jumped over the fence

           and found a two-pence

this Totoro and the boy.

Since I love Totoros (benevolent, furry spirits of the forest that appear and disappear at will, see the animated film of that title), I like this particular limerick the most. It is a classic. 

I wanted to take Adam's drawing for it home, but Adam folded the three limericks he wrote out and packed them in the crocodile chocolate box. These were his limericks after all. I was only allowed to take the robot.  I like inserting these pictures, with dates, between various documents, for fun. 

Let's fast forward to the singing day. Ever since my kids attended a folk performance at the La Crescenta public library where an old woman with a dulcimer (American folk harp or auto harp) sang it in a plaintive tone with lots of rubato and suspension of movement, I absolutely love the song "There was an old woman who swallowed a fly..." there is something so completely absurd and imaginative in this song, that I loved singing it to the kids even without the dulcimer.  Here's the original version:

There was an old woman who swallowed a fly.

I don't know why she swallowed a fly - perhaps she'll die!

There was an old woman who swallowed a spider.

That wiggled and jiggled and giggled inside her.

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly

I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!

There was an old woman who swallowed a bird.

How absurd to swallow a bird.

She swallowed the bird to catch the spider

                    That wiggled and jiggled and giggled inside her.

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly

I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!

There was an old woman who swallowed a cat

Just fancy that, to swallow a cat!

She swallowed the cat to catch the bird

She swallowed the bird to catch the spider

                    That wiggled and jiggled and giggled inside her.

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly

I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!

There was an old woman that swallowed a dog

Oh, what a hog, to swallow a dog!

She swallowed the dog to catch the cat

She swallowed the cat to catch the bird

She swallowed the bird to catch the spider

                   That wiggled and jiggled and giggled inside her.

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly

I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!

          There was an old woman who swallowed a goat

She opened her throat to swallow a goat.

She swallowed the goat to catch the dog  

          She swallowed the dog to catch the cat

She swallowed the cat to catch the bird

She swallowed the bird to catch the spider

                   That wiggled and jiggled and giggled inside her.

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly

 

I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!

 

There was an old woman who swallowed a cow

I don't know how she swallowed a cow.

She swallowed the cow to catch the goat

          She swallowed the goat to catch the dog  
          She swallowed the dog to catch the cat

She swallowed the cat to catch the bird

She swallowed the bird to catch the spider

                    That wiggled and jiggled and giggled inside her.

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly

I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!

There was an old woman who swallowed a horse...

She died - of course!

Chord Zither, manufacturers Adolf Larsson, before 1904. Photo Sofi Sykfont. Included in Musik- och teatermuseet (Music and Theatre Museum)'s instrument collection. Wikimedia Commons.

I found this song online, but the word "woman" was replaced by "lady" in most versions. Everyone knows that ladies do not swallow cats, cows and goats, so it should have been "woman" not "lady" - but that's an issue for another discussion, of replacement language on the Internet. BTW, do you know that the word "lamb" in the famous image of "lion with a lamb" of eternal peace in the Bible was replaced by "kid"? As in kid-goat? As if goats were not symbols of evil, "scapegoats" carrying the sins of the Israelite community into the desert. So there should be a "lamb" not a "kid" in the Bible... and a "woman" not a "lady" in the song. But who made the change? And why?  Let's leave this topic to another day.

So, to return to my story, I was singing quite loudly as we were walking home; singing shortens the distance, as it is well known. When I reached the end with "horse" and "died of course" - Adam said - "That's it? That's too short." And he sang: "There was an old woman who swallowed a whale and she grew a tail..." At which point I burst out laughing in the middle of the crosswalk, startling the drivers, who smiled at Grandma and Grandson having so much fun together.  We sang:

There was an old woman who swallowed a whale.

She grew a tail for she swallowed the whale. 

She swallowed the whale to catch the horse 

She swallowed the horse to catch the cow

She swallowed the cow to catch the goat

          She swallowed the goat to catch the dog  

          She swallowed the dog to catch the cat

She swallowed the cat to catch the bird

She swallowed the bird to catch the spider

                              That wiggled and jiggled and giggled inside her.

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly

I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!

That was very satisfactory indeed. Well done, Adam!  But we had to deal with the horse, I reminded the boy, since it was the horse that had to chase after the cow and the swallowing had to be successful, so that the old woman could continue her grotesque behavior. Here's what Adam came up with:

There was an old woman who swallowed a horse

On the obstacle course, she swallowed the horse.

She swallowed the horse to catch the cow

She swallowed the cow to catch the goat

          She swallowed the goat to catch the dog  

          She swallowed the dog to catch the cat

She swallowed the cat to catch the bird
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider

                              That wiggled and jiggled and giggled inside her.

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly

I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!

That was very good, and we reached home by then. But... I reminded Adam, the size difference between the horse and the whale was too large, maybe we could add some more large animals to the story? We tried bison, buffalo, and elephant, but none of the words rhymed with anything we found even remotely funny, so we moved on. In the garden, Adam decided to try even larger sizes, with the following result:

There was an old woman who swallowed a monster.

She missed her concert, for she swallowed the monster. 

She swallowed the monster to catch the whale

She swallowed the whale to catch the horse 

She swallowed the horse to catch the cow

She swallowed the cow to catch the goat

          She swallowed the goat to catch the dog  

          She swallowed the dog to catch the cat

She swallowed the cat to catch the bird
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider

                              That wiggled and jiggled and giggled inside her.

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly

I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!        

OK, everyone knows that monsters are different sizes and one could easily be larger than the blue whale, so indeed this monster could swallow the whale. But Adam wanted to go global, an important task in the age of globalization of everything.   His choice line was "There was an old woman who swallowed the Earth giant" - but I did not like it, it was too long and did not have another line to go with it. I suggested we repeat the Earth and put the "giant" into the second line.  Here's the end result:

There was an old woman who swallowed the Earth.

She choke to death on the giant Earth,

and the whale and the monster, and cow, dog, goat, cat and the horse...

She died, or course!  

Well, I'm pretty sure these were the two most productive poetic afternoon I spent in recent months. And the many times we laughed out loud while making up these silly rhymes? So incredibly, fantastically, unexpectedly heart-warming.  The world glowed around us, full of creativity and love. 

Building the forest and "Wild Things" from "Where the Wild Things Are" 2020

BONUS ON RECORDINGS

Here's a version by Burl Ives, pretty old-fashioned, with "I know an old lady" to start with, and the spider that "tickled" inside her... The melody is almost perfect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQHmZMf6zwo

Another old recording, by Tracy Newman done in 1965, does not have "fancy that" but "imagine that"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfbNNrILrF4

A fairly faithful animated rendition appeared in a nursery rhymes series: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApmEM9-xA2c

In contrast to these traditional renditions, the newer updates do not allow the old "lady" to die so she can only "cry" instead of dying at the end. This editorial change defeats the whole purpose of the rhyme - to familiarize children with the fact of death in a humorous way, without fear or horror. So when it was time for the "horse" - the rhyme was changed to "I'm joking, of course."  Ridiculous. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkefHONq-6I

But interestingly, the animation of an "old lady" swallowing all these things was pretty gruesome, and the lady herself not old but rather middle aged in a gray wig, showing a bias against old people. Plus she definitely was not dressed as a lady, wearing leggins, Ugh boots and an oversized sweater. Lady? She looked quite fashion-challenged! You want to have a lady? Dress her in a fancy dress, hat, with pearls, gloves, high heels and a lovely sun -umbrella and then make her swallow a cow... That would be an image to laugh about.  

If you do not know what a Totoro is, below you find a photo of my other granddaughter, Juniper at four months encountering a plush Totoro for the first time. 

Baby Juniper and the Totoro