What if we allow the Owl and the Pussycat to sail away?

I wore another pair of Jabebo earrings today, ones that I bought twelve or fifteen years ago when I was teaching middle school science. I might have been thinking I'd wear them to teach about wind energy or bouyancy, but in my heart I know that I bought them because this poem reminds me of my dad who memorized it as a young child and could still recite it over 60 years later.  

I wore them today because our Lower School assembly was to be a celebration of rounds and rhymes. When I was a child, my family entertained ourselves on long car trips by singing and listening to my dad's recitations of the poems he learned as a boy.

The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are, you are, you are,
What a beautiful Pussy you are."

Pussy said to the Owl "You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing.
O let us be married, too long we have tarried;
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows,
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose, his nose, his nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling your ring?"
 Said the Piggy, "I will."

The children I teach watch movies when they go for long car trips. When I put them in their cars to ride home from school, many immediately turn on their video game players. Most of them had never sung a round, other than perhaps in music class.What will become of our children if the Owl and the Pussycat just sail away?

So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon.
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand.
They danced by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

I try to hope that these changes will lead to positive outcomes. But I fear that much of the rich culture of childhood is drifting away, and that it will be hard to retrieve.

"They sailed away for a year and a day.... And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon. They danced by the light of the moon."

Mmmm. My dad's voice would linger over those final phrases, savoring the lilting rhymes.