What is the most useless thing you still have memorized?

Halloweeeeen, the witch is riding high,
Have you seeeeen her shadow in the sky,
Don't say you don't care, or boast, cause a ghost,
Just might come down and pull your hair!

When one teacher was trying to explain good posture to us, and how to sit up in our chairs,
She'd sing, "Don't ever be like Slouchy Slump!" Never found out just who the hell was Slouchy Slump.
 
Old Salt said:
Ah, three more completely useless poems and songs come to mind. Two from my French Class, the other from my English. And, no, I can no longer quote them in their entirety!


3) Clementine

In a cavern, in a canyon
Excavating for a mine
Dwelt a miner, forty-niner
And his daughter, Clementine

Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine

The sad thing is that we learned all those poems and songs, yet when I came to Canada I didn't even know how to ask for directions or for the simplest things! Frustrating! But at least I could sing Clementine to anyone who was interested! :ROFLMAO:
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Ooooh that's going to earworm me for days now.... šŸ˜¬šŸ˜¬
 

hollydolly said:
Ooooh that's going to earworm me for days now.... šŸ˜¬šŸ˜¬
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Does this one do anything for you, HD. I just remembered. Boy, everything comes flooding back. This forum is good for me!

My grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf,
So it stood ninety years on the floor;
It was taller by half than the old man himself,
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born,
And was always his treasure and pride;
But it stopp'd short ā€” never to go again ā€”
When the old man died.

Ninety years without slumbering
(tick, tick, tick, tick),His life seconds numbering,
(tick, tick, tick, tick),It stopp'd short ā€” never to go again ā€”When the old man died.
 
In some class, we had to memorize Oliver Wendell Holmes poem Old Ironsides.

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannonā€™s roar;ā€”
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroesā€™ blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying oā€™er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victorā€™s tread,
Or know the conquered knee;ā€”
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!
 
Old Salt said:
Nowadays I couldn't remember (let alone understand) the lyrics of a song but, in my youth there were two that really stuck with me. And, no, I couldn't quote them now except for the first line(s)!

"High Noon" and "Sixteen Tons!"
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Here's an excerpt from the song Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford:
You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

I remember watching him sing that song on his TV show when I was a kid.
 
Old Salt said:
Does this one do anything for you, HD. I just remembered. Boy, everything comes flooding back. This forum is good for me!

My grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf,
So it stood ninety years on the floor;
It was taller by half than the old man himself,
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born,
And was always his treasure and pride;
But it stopp'd short ā€” never to go again ā€”
When the old man died.

Ninety years without slumbering
(tick, tick, tick, tick),His life seconds numbering,
(tick, tick, tick, tick),It stopp'd short ā€” never to go again ā€”When the old man died.
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Oh no!! That has suddenly come back to me - I haven't heard that sung for at least 70 years. We used to sing it as children.
Old Salt said:
Does this one do anything for you, HD. I just remembered. Boy, everything comes flooding back. This forum is good for me!

My grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf,
So it stood ninety years on the floor;
It was taller by half than the old man himself,
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born,
And was always his treasure and pride;
But it stopp'd short ā€” never to go again ā€”
When the old man died.

Ninety years without slumbering
(tick, tick, tick, tick),His life seconds numbering,
(tick, tick, tick, tick),It stopp'd short ā€” never to go again ā€”When the old man died.
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Wow, I remember singing that song when I was about 9 years old. I checked it out and it was written in 1905 and Johnny Cash sang it on a record in 1959. Now it will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
 
Here's an odd one for a former Yankee sailor to recall. My Grandfather had a 78 recording that he loved to play:

Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand miles away,
(Captain, art you sleeping there below?)
Slung between the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,
An' dreaming all the time O' Plymouth home.
Yonder looms the Island, yonder lie the ships,
With sailor lads a-dancing' heel-an'-toe,
An' the shore-lights flashin', an' the night-tide dashin',
He sees it now so plainly as he saw it long ago.
 
I too had to memorize Old Ironsides. However I also memorized this little ditty.

When you and I are far apart
Can sorrow break your tender heart?
I love you darling, yes I do;
Sleep is so sweet when I dream of you;
All you are is a blossoming rose.
Night is here so I must close.
With care read the first word of each line.
You will find a question of mine.
 
When I was 8 years old my dad arranged for me to go to a summer trip with the YMCA to Mount Shasta. You had to be 10 but he somehow fixed it for me. Anyway we sang campfire songs in the evening and I still remember Mister Johnny Rebeck.

Way out in the forest
There lived a mean old man
His name was Mr. Johnny Rebeck
And he had a mean old plan
All the neighbors' cats and dogs
Were always at his feet
So he invented a sausage machine
That turned them all to meat

Oh Mister Mister Johnny Rebeck,
How could you be so mean
We told you you'd be sorry
For inventing that machine
Now all the neighbors' cats and dogs
Will never more be seen
They've all been turned to sausages
In Johnny Rebeck's machine

One day a little boy
Came waltzing in the store
He bought a pound of sausages
And laid them on the floor
And then he began to whistle,
He whistled a little tune
And all the little sausages,
Went dancing around the room

One day the darn thing busted,
It simply wouldn't go
So Johnny Rebeck climbed inside
To see what made it so
His wife had a nightmare
While walking in her sleep
She gave the crank a great big yank
And Johnny Rebeck was meat
 
I was required in school to memorize Lincolnā€™s Gettysburg Address as well as the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet and Portiaā€™s Quality of Mercy speech from The Merchant of Venice. I donā€™t consider such memorizations useless, however.

informal memorizations from childhood are more in the useless category. I still retain kid parodies of the lyrics to several Xmas carols that are of the ā€œJingle Bells, Batman smellsā€ varietyā€¦ šŸ˜ø
 
Repondering said:
Tarquin is also the only Roman king that I can remember. I do know that he was the 7th one and that the Roman Republic came after.
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I did look it up. Apparently Romulus was a real person and is listed as the first King of Rome. He ruled jointly with the king of the Sabini (remember the story of the Sabine women kidnapped to be wives for Romans?) so technically there were actually 8 kings before the republic.
 

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