A friend from college that now lives in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, posted a photograph on Facebook of the island. It was taken by a friend that is an airline pilot. The view from the air is spectacular. In his subsequent comments, my friend made some reference to "an old woman that lived in a shoe."
That reference put a smile on my face. My mother often quoted the poem found in the Mother Goose Story book many times:
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children, she didn't know what to do.
She gave them some broth without any bread;
And whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.
I connected the dots of the nursery rhyme, and it always made my smile. Other stories or nursery rhymes shared with me appeared to make sense. However, from the vantage point of adulthood, the stories took on an entirely different meaning.
Take for example, the story of Humpty Dumpty. Most of my generation can probably quote the nursery rhyme flawlessly:
"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the kings horses and all the kings men
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
In the make-believe world of children – Humpty Dumpy resembled an egg. Long story short: the egg was fragile and once broken, it was forever broken.
In adulthood, I read that Humpty Dumpty was the name of a large cannon that sat on top of a wall protecting St. Mary's Church in England. The wall on which the cannon was mounted was hit by cannon fire and the wall crumbled leaving the community unprotected.
The website of the Colchester tourist board attributed the origin of the rhyme to a cannon recorded as used from the church of St Mary-at-the Wall by Royalist defenders in the siege of 1648.
So is there more to the story of Humpty Dumpty than a cracked egg that couldn't be repaired. From the vantage point of childhood, I didn't need to know more. I probably still don't.
All My Best!
Don
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