What version did you learn? 'Ladies and gentlemen, hoboes and tramps, cockeyed mosquitos and

[bobbieinok]

bowlegged ants. I stand before you to sit behind you to tell you something I know nothing about. Next Monday, which is Good Friday, there will be a father's meeting for mothers only. Pull up a chair, sit on the floor, open the window and shut the door.

One morning in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to to fight. Back to back they faced each other, drew their swords and shot each other. A deaf policeman heard the noise, got up and shot the two dead boys.'

I learned this as a kid in tne 40s.

[Freelancer]

1. WOW. Love that! Thanks -nt

[applegrove]

2. The second paragraph sounds familiar.

[mr_lebowski]

3. Think there's an 'admission is free, so pay at the door' in there somewhere (n/t)

[bobbieinok]

6. YES! KNEW I left sonething out

There will be a fathers' meeting for mothers only. Admission free, pay at the door, pull up a chair, sit on the floor [NOT open the window, shut the door]

[aka-chmeee]

4. Never heard the first paragraph,

The second paragraph I learned started "One bright day in the middle of the night......" and was appended:
"So don't laugh when you see a hearse go by, for you may be the next to die. They wrap you up in a big white sheet; bury you down about six feet. Six weeks later casket springs a leak. Worms crawl in, worms crawl out. Worms like pinochle on your snout."
Always seemed like it was two separate bits that somehow got connected. Now they are three and still seem to only have ties in the minds of children.

[bobbieinok]

5. Heard that part separate from the rest

[yellowdogintexas]

11. that was a song we sang at camp...

and my mother thought it was hilarious. Well, I found out she taught it to her grandkids. At least my daughter and my sister's daughter who are the same age and spent a lot of time with her. I found out when we were visiting our daughter in Phoenix and she started telling one of her friends about my mother and her Twilight Zone obsession, Stephen King obsession and all the wierd stories she used to tell my daughter and her cousin. Then she says, "Mom, even the hearse song!" So we sang it for these guys who grew up where obviously no one goes to camp and sings crazy camp songs . They were cracking up!!!

The last part of the song was: The worms play pinochle on your snout, they eat your eyes, they eat your nose they eat the jelly between your toes, your eyes fall in, your teeth fall out and little green men come out and shout "We Want the Body the Green and SLimy Body" !

[aka-chmeee]

13. Good finally (after 60 years)

To see how that bit of doggerel actually ends. I never did understand how worms were like pinochle on your snout. Since NE Kansas contributed very few to "summer camps" I suppose it just corrupted as it traveled and we ended up with the incomplete version.
'Course, it was gross and icky (and just a little scary) so it didn't matter to us that it didn't make any "sense".

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

16. A fine song

[Fla Dem]

7. A little longer version....

One fine day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight.
Back-to-back they faced one another,
Drew their swords and shot each other.

One was blind and the other couldn't see,
So they chose a dummy for a referee.
A blind man went to see fair play,
A dumb man went to shout "hooray!"

A deaf policeman heard the noise,
And came to arrest those two dead boys.

A paralyzed donkey passing by,
Kicked the blind men in the eye,
Sent him through a nine inch wall,
Into a dry ditch and drowned them all.

(If you don't believe this lie is true,
Ask the blind man – he saw it too!)

[bobbieinok]

8. Great. Kinda remember hearing part of that once

[lastlib]

9. This:

A fella handed me a ditty once,
I thought it sounded blue,
I didn't think I liked it much,
So I'm handing it to you.

The alligators sang it once,
A-comin' through the rye,
They sang it to the elephant
Up in the tree so high.

The iceman hummed the ditty
As he shoveled in the coal,
He sang it to the goldfish
Up around the North Pole.

It was midnight on the ocean,
Not a streetcar was in sight.
I stepped into the drugstore
To get myself a light.

The man behind the counter
Was a lady old and gray,
Who used to peddle shoestrings
On the road to Mandalay.

All her kids were orphans,
All except one tiny tot
Who lived up on the second floor
Above the vacant lot.

(I was told, don't know if it's true or not, that this came from a Bing Crosby/Bob Hope movie.)

[eppur_se_muova]

12. 'Twas midnight on the ocean, not a streetcar was in sight ...

And the wind kicked up an awful dust as it rained all day that night.


'Twas a Summer day in Winter, and the snow was raining fast
as a barefoot boy with shoes on stood sitting on the grass.


(Anyone know where these things came from ?)

[3catwoman3]

10. I must have had a deprived childhood.

I have never heard any of these.

[annabanana]

15. Not a kid in the 40's or 50"s?

That would account for it.

[3catwoman3]

17. Born in '51, but somehow...

...missed out on these. They are rather strange.

[annabanana]

14. I learned the second one as "One Day in the Middle of the night". . . .n/t