Sing a song of six-pence, all fall down along with Humpty Dumpty, the

King’s horse, the king’s men, the muffin man and all who live on Drury lane.

My musical background began with these tunes and never meanders very far

from there except for my days in high school chorus singing something by Noel Coward

and George Gershwin, Summertime, I Got Rhythm and the usual rock hits of my day. Plus

the church choir then and now, old fashioned hymns and when I was a teenager singing duets with my twin sister, fraternal, but we tried to dress nearly alike when we performed. We sang Blue Moon wearing green dresses with a design that resembled tapestry. I can see those dresses now, our moments on the high school stage she singing melody in her clear unaffected soprano, and I singing harmony because what was left? She still sings solos with her small church choir, and I join my choir for Christmas season and Lent and Easter. One of the group, it is my holiday celebration living singly as I do with no higher aspirations than to be spinster woman Miss Marple, discovering the murderer and the secret relationship between the man and woman who introduce themselves as cousins, but are really husband and wife, plotting to swindle their uncle, who is not really their uncle, but a one time love of their late mother who died in an American asylum after moving there following one of the European Wars, in which England is left in tatters. You know their modern history and the history of the world wars and the collapse of royalty nearly everywhere but in a few select places, Amsterdam, Sweden and Spain except for the time of Franco’s Fascist state dictatorship. Nursery rhymes were created because of incidents in history Americans don’t understand, the war of the Roses, the 100 years war, the skirmishes in which king’s would lose their heads literally, after first doing so figuratively. Merrily we roll along, roll along, while the King of Spain’s daughter has a tree that makes her happy. Is the daughter of the King so happy now? I think I shall write a nursery song with 2 or 3 short lines, nonsense words such as kachewing and mextagangle. Oh the words were part of last night’s dream. The frightening one in whch someone is following me into a phone booth with a rifle. Have you used a phone booth lately? Sing a song of iphones. Gather ye rosebuds while you may. That is the story of my musical career and how I was defiant and distracted by curious turns of events, dear Lady Jane.