Kidsongs

of my sibling cohort, i was the only one who ever went to stay with aunts and uncles for any length of time. let me clarify... i was not sent away; i was rewarded with visits, with extended playdates with cousins. it was camp for lower middle class folk.

actually, this is just now dawning on me. i'm not quite sure why i went on these visits and my sisters didn't. must remember to ask my parents. anyway...
 

for a period there in late elementary and early junior high, in that middling time where you're still hanging on to being a kid, puberty and responsibility nipping at your heels, i would travel several hours north to spend a precious week of summer vacation with my cousin rob. he was one year younger and lived out in the country (i was a 'burbs kid). we would fish, feed ducks, ride four-wheelers, and do crafts. my aunt had some planned activities but also allowed for plenty of mosey-about, exploring time.

my visits usually fell around july fourth, and rob and i would fold bullet boxes for fireworks money (my aunt and uncle ran an ammunition factory out of their barn -- country, right?). we made a penny a box, folding 'til our fingers bled, watching tapes in his older brother's bedroom because he had the cool waterbed. we would just toss the folded boxes off the end of the bed until the piles got so high that we were trapped in the room.

rob taught me sir mix-a-lot lyrics -- buttermilk biscuits, posse's on broadway, and, yes, baby got back. we also listened to "The Simpsons Sing the Blues" and goofed around recording our own versions on a mini-recorder and playing them back at high-speed. rob was a big fan of the california raisins, a fact i teased him about mercilessly, as only cousins can do.

rob and i were close. we shared secrets, some that i've yet to reveal to anyone else. we are not, however, close as adults. he is a married father of two whom i've seen twice in the last 10 years (at funerals, of course. the acute angle of time closes on us all. tempus fugit.). his wife is pretty active on the social websites, so i keep up with him from a distance. but our mothers stopped getting along after our grandfather died. they disagreed as to the care of our infirm grandmother and became irreparably estranged after her passing. it's sad. they used to make each other laugh. they counted on each other for hilariously inappropriate greeting cards, filled with potty humor and beer jokes. and now their vitriol is poisoning the waters of the next generation. i don't begrudge rob his mother's choices, but the tension drives a slow, heavy wedge between our former familiarity.

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the other family i would visit was my father's sister's clan. she had two children much younger than me, maybe 6-8 years. i would visit around that same late elementary/early junior high age, and the visits amounted to more of a lesson in babysitting than discount summer camp.

because my cousins were so much younger than me, i discovered the power of the older "cool" relative. being the youngest of three myself, i had only been on the giving end of idolatry to that point, but i remember recognizing in my cousins that same absolute approval i had given to my sisters, now given to me, no questions asked. it was exciting!

an original Kidsongs kid

these cousins had the great fortune to be raised by an attentive and loving stay-at-home mom and were brought up in the midst of very wholesome PBS programming. i, too, was exposed to the joys of this programming, specifically Kidsongs (the videos, not the tv show), and remember it fondly to this day. in fact, i just googled it and was delighted to see that the original videos (now on dvd) are still available. (these were produced in the '80s, people. and, yes, you can tell.)

these shows taught me lots of great classic songs.

up, up and away. 
bicycle built for two. 
put me in coach. 
waltzing matilda. 
i got wheels. 
if i had a hammer. 
sea cruise. 
drivin' my life away. 
act naturally.

part of what i loved about these videos was the group of kids. it was always the same bunch in the early videos, and there was this one boy... he wasn't particularly cute, but there was something about him that i liked. maybe it was his "acting." these were basically music videos all linked together under a common theme (going to the farm, things that move, sports). there was some minor semblance of a plot, and it took some acting to transition between songs. the kids really hammed it up, too. another reason why i loved it.

so i hold a little spot in my heart for the songs that i learned from Kidsongs. they transport me back to being with my little cousins, still a kid myself but trying to impart grownup "wisdom" to my captive audience. and singing like nobody's business.