Ever Seen a Lizard Dressed as a Wizard?
Science is not the concern of Postcards from Monadnock. Wonder is; more specifically, wondering.
It is the end of summer and we are left with a few open questions: have we put up enough wood for winter? Will the tomatoes finish ripening? For the second year in a row, can I skate through until spring without staining our two wooden porches? And, the most nagging question, have we ever seen a lizard dressed as a wizard?
That last question sounds foolish, of course. Don’t take it too seriously. Don’t suppose we are invested in an answer, or open to online comments telling us that lizard wizards do not appear in cold climates such as New Hampshire’s. But a week after our grandchildren, ages five and two, left to return to France, it remains the most nagging question because it was put to us over and over again—I’d say, fifty times—by the song, “Down by the Bay,” played on our grandson’s new toy record player, which my wife purchased for him as a late birthday present.
Down by the bay
Where the watermelons grow
Back to my home
I dare not go
For if I do
My mother will say
Have you ever seen a lizard dressed as a wizard?
Down by the bay
. . . Or countless other rhymes that young and old can conjure: Lama/pajama, goat/boat, parrot/carrot. My wife was so affected, she was blurting out new rhymes from her side of the bed at night. The song intends that; it’s suitable for campfires. Anything goes, until you run out of rhyming energy. In which case:
Did you ever have a time when you couldn’t make a rhyme?
Down by the bay
“Down by the Bay” was popularized in 1976 by the singer/songwriter, Raffi. But the song is far older than that, coming from England or Scotland. No one knows its true origin. I suspect it was aliens that visited earth, maybe the ones who developed Stonehenge. Just another puzzle with no real answer, designed to taunt us with the possibility that elsewhere there are wizard lizards, along with bears combing hair, who travel space/time, sharing silly rhymes, which we could too, if we all had ruby slippers.
I have been thinking back to what I may have listened to over and over at age five. Isn’t it funny that I can’t remember, despite knowing there must have been something equivalent to “Down by the Bay”? I remember listening to Beatles albums over and over. But not incessantly. I was twice as old, by then. I'm sure my parents must have read me the same stories, repeatedly. For example, “Huge Harold,” by Bill Peet:
When Harold the Rabbit was tiny and small, his feet started growing and that’s about all.
What I remember most about the book, apart from the opening, was how my father loved it. He spent summers on a farm in upstate New York that had a couple of red barns like the one in which Huge Harold sought refuge and was saved by the beneficent farmer, Orville B. Croft, who shouted to the hunters,
He’s in here, and here’s where he’ll stay. You’re not coming in, so be off on your way.
Orville B. Croft: a man who took a stand. I own a green wool, Filson Mackinaw hat that I refer to as my Orville B. Croft hat. It is the same boxy shape, with the visor and ear flaps, as depicted in the illustration of him leaning out the barn loft window, resting on arms serenely crossed, easing his neighbors on down the road. I tell people I could walk through the winter cold wearing nothing but that hat, which, let’s face it, is not simply about its ability to trap the hot air escaping from the stovepipe of my head, but the warmth generated by memories of the book, my father’s shoulders, and my lama pajamas.
I am not interested in the science of these things. Science is not the concern of Postcards from Monadnock. Wonder is; more specifically, wondering. Someone knows why children will invest in the same thing over and over in the same sitting—the same video, picture book, song. The same person may be able to tell me why “Down by the Bay” has been stuck in my head for a week, when I’m sure it departed from my grandchildren’s by the time they reached the bottom step of the basement playroom to encounter new objects of worship. They are high-topping through the early stages of growth, behaving like the dragonflies I see out the window, which dart left, right, up, down, backward, forward. Capture. Capture. Capture. Hop, hop, hop.
Six months from now, of course, the toy record player, which made the transatlantic trip back to France, may be a relic, overlooked in a corner of the room, along with “Down by the Bay.” So goes celebrity. So go the centers of all attention.
I think we have nearly the wood we need to get through winter. We are focused on deploying the small limbs and branches that have accumulated from the cutting and splitting to build dead brush fences along the edges of the field. Besides which, brush just happens around here. Putting it to work as fences seems like a good idea. I may get to the porches for staining, but there is a longer list that includes reorganizing the tools in the garage. Boring, but necessary. As for the tomatoes, these days the sun is not getting around to their bed until later in the morning, having sunk below the tops of the white pines. I can’t change that fact. For the tomatoes' sake, we will have to hope the warm temperatures keep up.
Never mind. What real importance attaches to those questions compared to seeing a lizard dressed up as a wizard? Down by the bay. Where the watermelons grow.