Local High School Students Learn Military History in the Kitchen

KPBS News ^ | May 16, 2007 | Ana Tintocalis

[Dumpster Baby]

(To the tune of “Hard Times Come Again No More”

LOL - yeah, we used to sing that at church camp when we were kids. (not really) :0)

[AnAmericanMother]

I learned it "the wail that is mingled with each snore."

"Goober Peas"

Sitting by the roadside, on a summer's day,
Chatting with my messmates, passing time away,
Lying in the shadow underneath the trees
Goodness how delicious, eating goober peas!

Peas, peas, peas, peas, eating goober peas,
Goodness how delicious, eating goober peas!

When a horseman passes, the soldiers have a rule
To cry out at their loudest, "Mister here's your mule."
But another pleasure, enchantinger than these
Is wearing out your grinders, eating goober peas.

(chorus)

Just before the battle, the General hears a row,
He says, "The Yanks are coming, I hear their rifles now."
He turns around in wonder, what do you think he sees?
The Georgia Militia, eating goober peas.

(chorus)

I think my song has lasted almost long enough,
The subject's interesting, but the rhymes are mighty rough.
I wish the war was over, when free from rags and fleas,
We'll kiss our wives and sweethearts, and gobble goober peas.

Peas, peas, peas, peas, eating goober peas,
Goodness how delicious, eating goober peas!

I have this book, it has all the good ones in it.

[BobS]

I was at a half dozen AF bases. The best meal was breakfast about 5-6AM in the chow hall. You can't screw up eggs, french toast, home fries, SOS, pancakes, bacon and sausages and simpler stuff. The midnight breakfast was good too for guys that had duty on those shifts.

All those bases had base contracts with local farmers/suppliers in Spain, Holland, England and in states here to provide eggs, milk, bread and every other thing you need for breakfast. Standard stuff all over the place in Europe. And fruits too.

[75thOVI]

That looks like a good book. I have a few, but not that one. One thing I learned about Civil War music long ago, is that even the “Official” version can vary, sometimes by quite a bit.

[AnAmericanMother]

It's an excellent book, very well researched. I picked it up at the Chickamauga Natl Park one time when we were up there.

The "old standards" like "Lorena" and "Tenting Tonight" have a contemporaneous published and thus uniform version.

But once they get out into the public and are sung all around, things change.

Example: John Mellencamp used a scrap of an old popular sheet music song, "In the Baggage Coach Ahead", on one of his albums as "Grandma's Theme". He got the words wrong, of course, no telling if it really was an old woman who was singing her version of it or just the usual Hollywood claptrap. He didn't even credit the songwriter, Gussie Davis, a black Pullman porter who made good as a songwriter and composer.

And as for the camp songs and parodies sung by the soldiers, who knows which version is "correct"? They probably sprang up in a dozen places at once.

[AnAmericanMother]

Oh, the Air Force guys have always lived like kings.

("They go up - we just go along." -- Spike Milligan, God rest his soul.)

"Uncle Willie!"