Little Bunny Foo Foo

Little Bunny Foo Foo
hoppin' through the forest,
scoopin' up the field mice
and boppin' em on the head.
And down came the Blue Fairy, and she said:
Little Bunny Foo Foo
I don't want to see you
scoopin' up the field mice
and boppin' em on the head.
And now I'll give you three chances, and if you keep it up,
I'll turn you into a goon.

Little Bunny Foo Foo
kept hoppin' through the forest,
kept scoopin' up the field mice
and boppin' em on the head.
And down came the Blue Fairy, and she said:
Little Bunny Foo Foo
I don't want to see you
scoopin' up the field mice
and boppin' em on the head.
And now I'll give you two more chances, and if you do that again,
I'll turn you into a goon.

Little Bunny Foo Foo
kept hoppin' through the forest,
kept scoopin' up the field mice
and boppin' em on the head.
And down came the Blue Fairy, and she said:
Little Bunny Foo Foo
I don't want to see you
scoopin' up the field mice
and boppin' em on the head.
And now I'll give you one more chance, and if you keep it up,
I'll turn you into a goon.

Little Bunny Foo Foo
kept hoppin' through the forest,
kept scoopin' up the field mice
and boppin' em on the head.
And down came the Blue Fairy, and she said:
Little Bunny Foo Foo
I don't want to see you
scoopin' up the field mice
and boppin' em on the head.
You disobeyed me three times, so now I'm gonna turn you
into a GOON!

Good for you, you forest hoppin', mice boppin' deliquent. The bunny was a repeat offender.

nursery rhyme

We were just about to start our English lesson, but that part isn't so clear now. I was still too energized from the morning recess break we'd just returned from. In third grade, we could still enjoy three rich helpings of recess, before eventually getting weaned down to a 30 minute lunch break in high school.

One time, a few other kids were singing a song together as they gathered by the school entrance, waiting to get back in after their break.

. . .
Little Bunny Foo Foo
hoppin' through the forest,
scoopin' up the field mice
and boppin' em on the head
. . .

But wait, they were singing something else. I've heard all about Little Bunny Foo Foo, and there was some change to the words sung to our familiar melody. It wasn't the familiar bunny we all knew who bounced through the forest, harassing field mice. no, this rabbit wasn't in the forest, but ...

Little Bunny Foo Foo
hoppin' through McDonalds,
scoopin' up the french fries
and chompin' em on the head
along came the green manager
and he said,
Little Bunny Foo Foo,
I don't want to see you
scoopin' up my french fries
and chompin' em on the head
And now I'll give you three chances,
and if you keep it up,
I'll cook you into a hamburger!

Hahaha! Genius!
I could just imagine that rabbit running over the shiny tile floor and swiping fries from unsuspecting customers. Watch out little bunny, you could be in a colorful paper wrapper next! If I would have heard this any other time besides English class, I might have dismissed it as something trivial and not remembered it. However, this was at school, where things looked a lot more funny than they might have.

Compared to a boring lesson about verbs and nouns, this was gold. a rabbit scooping field mice? hilarious! bopping them on the head? side-splittingly funny!

I walked through the hall towards my next class, the words still tingling with hilarity in my mind. I tried settling down at my desk, but the class wasn't quite focused on our lesson and I thought I had time for another round of song. My desk was at the back of the room anyway, and a bunch of students sort of blocked the teacher's view of me if I ducked down a little bit.

Little Bunny Foo Foo,
I don't want to see you
scoopin' up my french . . .

"OK class, today we will be studying nouns. Please look at your sheet. There are some sentences that we will use as examples. I want you to underline the nouns. Who can tell me . . ."

". . . and chompin' em on the head . . ."

Some of my classmates were still giggling with delight over the novel changes someone had made to our song, and I wanted to put on a show. Another meme floating around our adolescent minds around that time was to speak in a baby-voice, emphasizing "w"-sounds. Even though pronunciation was not officially part of our curriculum, this deliberate step backwards ran counter to most teachers' spirit of good education and was generally frowned upon.

"Widddddooo Bunny Foow Foow,
I down't want to see woo . . . "

Since our teacher had now officially started our lesson, class was in session and we were expected to pay attention. Any interruptions were fair game for a reprimand. The new lyrics, now sung in a mischievous voice, caught our teacher's attention. She broke step in her lesson and tried to cut my performance short.

"Excuse me young man, I need you to pay attention now. Recess is over. Please take a look at your sheet and underline the nouns."

I was already familiar with the lesson she was giving, and wasn't especially interested in following through on every detail of what she had to say. Nouns, ok. I understand those. OK,. . .

The children opened the door of their house. They played in their yard with a red ball.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.. . . children . . . door . . . house . . . their . . . they . . . yard . . ball

I blazed through most of the lines. This lesson was boring. The teacher had already made her point, and wasn't making it quite as interesting as it could have been. Nouns are words that describe people, places or things. There are single nouns, plural nouns, pronouns, and even nouns that describe ideas or feelings. I get the point. Before I lost track of where I stopped mid-song, I was back to singing.

. . . awoooong came wuuuuh gweeeeeen managwuuurrrr
and he swaaaaeeeed . . .

In an irritated tone, she turned away from the board and looked towards me. She lowered the hand that held a piece of chalk and looked straight at me.

"Excuse me, I've asked you before to pay attention. If you're going to speak, please talk properly. You really need to focus on our lesson now. You can't learn if you're not paying attention.

Maybe she would just ignore me if I pretended to pay attention for a while. I could just sing it quietly so that a few people around me could hear and I could keep the show going. I was on a roll, and my audience was expecting me to at least finish another verse.

. . .And nowwwwwww I'll give wooo tweeeeee chances,
and if wooooo keep it wup, I'wwwwlll . . . .

"Stop singing. This is the third time I've asked you to stop. I can't trust you there in the back of the class, so you have to move up front where I can see you. Come over here, and sit in this desk."

I wouldn't be finishing my song any time soon. I'd been gooned.

When D and I are 16, we are camp counselors for the YMCA up our street.

He is black, I am white and we'd been neighbors for two years, since my family had moved to Monroe Street. We are still friends.

J runs the camp. She is Much Older, meaning 19. Her younger sister B volunteers and runs the "baby room" with the 3-5 year olds.

In theory we have kids age 6-12 but there are some employees' kids who are 13. We also usually have a teen somewhere between 16 and 19 doing community service. We ignore them if they don't do anything. We are BUSY.

We have 20-30 kids or so. D and J have lifeguard status. I had gotten sick at the time of the test, so didn't finish. We have to take this crew swimming each day. We have them from 8 am to 5pm, I think. It is insane. Teens taking care of teens and babies.

At swim time I have the younger kids, the 6-8 year olds and anyone who can't swim. The pool is old style so most of my small kids can't touch. One kid is named River. He cries at even the thought of the pool. I feel that I am very successful when I get him to put his feet in the water sitting on the side of the pool. I do not care when his mom wants to know why he is not making progress swimming. We have to be brutally practical as well as bossy to manage that many kids without anyone drowning. Discipline is swift and impartial. We all back each other up all the time.

Our main room is an auditorium with gymnastics equipment stored along one wall. The kids are not supposed to climb on the mat draped over the horse. They climb on it all the time. I'd done some gymnastics and seen and heard two girls break their arms on the mini tramp. D gets the mini tramp out. I say I will have nothing to do with it. He shrugs and persists. He later has a second career as a gymnastics coach and makes book. Figures. At any rate, I don't veto it, I just refuse to be involved with it. No worries.

So, the 19 year old, the 17 year old and two 16 year olds take the 20-30 kids camping over night once every two week session. We drive in a school bus out to a Virginia park. Before the kids are let off the bus, we say, "Stay on the paths. If you go in the woods you will get poison ivy which will make you blister and itch like crazy. Do not go off the paths."

Yeah, well. The oppositional defiant ones promptly run into the woods. Not very far into the woods, though, these are city kids who are worrying about lions and tigers and bears, oh my. We never worry about one getting lost, though I don't remember being conscious of why. We help them set up tents, send them on a snipe hunt, feed them chili, have a fire, sing stupid camp songs and send them to bed. In theory we don't have any 3-5 year olds for overnight but actually we always have a couple because it is an employee's older child's younger sibling and the parents beg. Yeah, ok. The counselors sleep in a row, with a 3-5 year old tucked in between each of us. The 3-5 year olds are particularly scared of lions and tigers and bears oh my after their older sibling tortures them on the way to the park. We each have a 3-5 year old staying within touch distance or hanging on to our shirt or leg, all the time.

One oppositional defiant employee's kid runs into the woods and pretty much stays there and mocks us. "Nyahh, nyahh, I'm in the woods." Yeah, we ignore him. His mother comes after us the next Monday. "He's head to toe poison ivy! Why didn't you keep him out of the woods?" I think the 19 year old is diplomatic. I would have said, "Short of handcuffing him to the bus, there was no way to keep him out of the woods." I have a terrible reaction to poison ivy, but I have very little sympathy for that kid. Listen to your elders, brat.

We sing little bunny foo foo. In our version it is the Good Fairy. And the pun at the end: The moral of the story is Hare Today, Goon Tomorrow....

And now I veer into dreamland.

The goon looks at the Good Fairy.

"What the hell business is it of yours if I am picking up the field mice and whacking them on the heads?"

The Good Fairy stares back at him.

"You are right! I'm sorry! What the hell business is it of mine if you are picking up the field mice and whacking them on the heads." Three iron bands around her heart burst open all at once and she falls into the arms of the goon.

Her hair bursts into bloom. She and the goon live happily ever after. She keeps him so busy that the field mice are happy too, and anyhow, it was love taps all the time. Now sometimes the field mice have to beg the goon to pat them.

Hair today, gone tomorrow.