Every now and then, I a little ditty pops into my head.  It is one of the few sound memories I have of my grandfather, Albert James Belanus, Sr., who died when I was about seven years old.  I remember him as a tall, slim Dutchman from Northern New Jersey with a shock of white hair and bushy black eyebrows.  He sometimes ate cold rice with milk and sugar.  He loved Christmas and he and my grandmother spoiled us rotten buying toys with their Christmas Club money.

Anyhow,  he used to sing a little song that I only figured out was a naughty song years and years later, after he was long buried.  I realized then why he got a twinkle in his eye when he sang it. I don’t think my sister remembers it, or maybe this was something between Pop-Pop and me.   It went something like this, in my memory:

A-sol, a-sol, a-soldier boy was he (repeat)

He had two pis- two pistols on his knee (repeat)

There might have been more, but that is all I recall, except for a sort of chorus that sounded to me like “And step, comarade, and step comarade, and step tra-la-la-la.”  Which led me to believe that maybe it was a marching song for actual soldiers, though my grandfather was never a soldier.

It never occurred to me to search for other versions on the internet.  (And I call myself a folklorist?)  But, here it is, and here, along with discussions about its origins and alternative versions.  (I can see now why my grandfather might have edited out some of the additional verses for my little ears.)  Seems as if it might have started as a soldier’s song and then made it’s way to the playground.  Where my grandfather learned it, we will never know.  But, it is so ingrained in my memory that I recall it more than 50 years later.

The power of music, the power of memory, the power of love.

I’m thinking of launching a new weekly blog feature.  (Well, I guess when this hits my blog site, I will have actually launched it.)  The premise is, I go for a walk around the neighborhood with my cell phone camera handy, and notice three things and take a picture of them.  These three things need  a theme (sorry, I am a curator what can I say?).   So, my theme today is “things made of metal.”  

Observation #1 is a tiny metal car (probably a Matchbox) on the curb between sidewalk and road.  What wayward child left it there?  It is obviously well used, perhaps a favorite toy of this child.  Yet, he or she left it outside on the curb to the fates.  Or someone else found it in the street and placed it there in hopes its owner would find it?  Who knows.  But it is fun to speculate.

Observation #2 is the gate to the “mini-park” that our kids (as in, the neighborhood kids since we only have one) used to play in when they were younger.  I never noticed, but this metal gate has the name of our neighborhood fashioned into it.  Who was the metal artist who constructed this sign and added it to the gate?   The same craftsperson who made the rest of the gate?  Nice job, regardless.

Observation #3 is a (partially) metal bird house.  (Or is this a bat house?  It doesn’t look like other bat houses if so!) There are actually three of them, that I saw at least, in the Thrifton Hills Park at the end of the streets I was walking down.  There is no explanation of why these are here; no markings indicating their intended inhabitants.  No clues whatsoever.  If anyone has any ideas, I would be happy to learn what sort of bird or other creature these are intended to house, and what benefits they might have for the neighborhood.

One walk, three observations.  Try it in your neighborhood, and watch this space for my next foray into the unknown and mysterious thematic material culture of Maywood, Arlington, Virginia and maybe some other places I might walk around in the future!

For those of you who have been following me on my Homestead site, I have finally taken the plunge into the world of WordPress.  It is going to take me awhile to learn this new platform (thanks to all my friends who already use and have been giving me pointers, as well as the You Tube videos that walk one through), so stay tuned while I figure this out.  I am sure once I get it figured out, it will be a whole new ball game.