Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe.  Catch a tiger by the toe.

Holy smokes… the things we tell our children.

If he hollers, let him go.  Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe.

This troubled me greatly as a child.  First and foremost, I couldn’t even imagine what it would take to catch a tiger.  And then, on the off chance that I ever DID catch one…. what the crap would happen if he did NOT holler?  It all spelled big trouble to me.

As a sidebar….  I don’t eat Tiger meat.
To this day… I am not a hunter.  A carnivore… I AM indeed.  But I like to go to aisle 9 at Marsh Supermarket, and pick up any type of dead animals I plan on consuming…. right there in the meat department.  It is much neater that way… and I don’t have to look something in the eye before I ingest it.    But I am pretty sure these early childhood songs drove my dislike of hunting.

A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go,
Heigh ho, the dairy-o, a hunting we will go!
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go,
We’ll catch a fox and put him in a box,
And then we’ll let him go!

Again, the logistics of this were beyond me when I was five.  As was the reasoning.

Here’s another thing.  I know a lot of farmers in these parts.  Men and Women Farmers.  To this day… I am afraid of ALL you Farmer’s Wives out there.  Point in case…

Three blind mice, Three blind mice
See how they run, See how they run!

They all ran after
The farmer’s wife.
She cut off their tails
With a carving knife.

Chills.  Right down my spine.  The whole butcher knife thing is creepy.   I mean… those mice were BLIND for crying out loud.
Now they are blind AND physically impaired.

I am sure most people get over these things by the time they turn 12.  But not me.  I saw Peter Pan when I was eight.  And dag nab it.  I  guess I won’t grow up.  I won’t.

In some ways this may be a good thing.  And then again…  perhaps… this would explain an awful lot about me.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.  –Plato

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life. –Omar Khayyam