<p>momof3sons: OUI! Je suis AUSSI pass-y vingt deux quinze. </p>
<p>Boy, did that bring back memories.</p>
<p>Geometry theorems: we referred to them by abbreviations, cpctc, etc. My high school geometry teacher was a former military guy who ran the class as if we were recruits. One of my all time favorite teachers, amazingly. I can still hear him saying “I thought I smelled wood burning!”</p>
<p>On the lighter side, tikki tikki tembo and just about all the Dr Suess books.</p>
<p>French…Michelle, Anne…vous travailler? Uh…Non. Nous regardons la televisione. Pouquoi? I’m sure I spelled most of it wrong but I said it in my head a thousand times before the first recitiation in French1. </p>
<p>OK, how come nobody has said the age old college happy hour mantra?
Beer on liquor, never been sicker. Liquor on Beer, have no fear.</p>
<p>All the lyrics to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels Band memorized in the hot summer nights of 1979 while driving endless miles with a carload of girls in a small southern town.</p>
<p>ALM language records … the first two dialogues in <em>Russian</em> which I will not try to replicate here without the Cyrillic alphabet. I bet that if someone started me on the Spanish ones, that those are still buried in my brain, but it’s always the Russian that pops to the top. That’s from 7th grade.</p>
<p>I also have the names of the first several books of t he Old Testament on the tip of my tongue. From 5th grade Sunday school.</p>
<p>My mother loved poetry and verse – and I still recite Barbara Freichie (Up from the meadows rich with corn, clear in the cool september morn, … shoot if you must this old grey head, but spare your country’s flag she said A look of sadness, a blush of shame, over the face of their leader came … who touches a hair of yon grey head dies like a dog, march on, he said …) I know I learned that in 1969 …</p>
<p>Kids had to memorize the prologue to Romeo and Juliet …</p>
<p>Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.</p>
<p>“OK, how come nobody has said the age old college happy hour mantra?
Beer on liquor, never been sicker. Liquor on Beer, have no fear.”</p>
<p>Because I never learned it in English, but I do know the German version, learned in NY from a Frenchman. "“Bier nach Wein, das lasse sein! Wein nach Bier, das rat’ ich dir.”</p>
<p>Baltimore Catechism here: “Who made you?”; “God made me.” “Why did God make you?”; etc.</p>
<p>I also diagrammed plenty of sentences. It has served me well. </p>
<p>HS fight song: </p>
<p>“Rosary Rockets, Rosary Rockets, show your zip and speed!
Pass the ball right to that forward; 2 points sure will beat Immaculata!
Rosary Rockets, Rosary Rockets, on to victory!
We have the greatest team in all the league!”</p>
<p>I should remember all the Latin I took, but have forgotten most of it.</p>
<p>Dr. Seuss; my favorite line: “It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how!”</p>
<p>I loved Freight Train - very poetic!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wasn’t it great. I loved the simplicity of it. Probably on my top ten list of picture books, certainly the top of trainbooks. Mathson was train-mad from 18 months to about 6 years old. (Which is when he discovered programming.) :eek:</p>
<p>Ask a cadet from any Service Academy…they’ll have a list.
Aircraft, missiles, memorials, quotes, facts about each academy, etc.</p>
<p>I memorized AA Milne just from my mom reading it to me:</p>
<p>“James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree
Took great care of his mother, though he was only three.
James James said to his mother, Mother, he said, said he,
You must never go down to the end of the town if you don’t go down with me.” etc.</p>
<p>I still hear it in my mom’s voice. It is a little sexist, though, when you think about it…oops, wait, that’s the Purity Ball thread…;)</p>
<p>mathmom, My husband and two sons are still train-mad. Our fairly sizable basement is completely occupied by an enormous, multi-level model train layout. My husband has tons of cars, tracks, scenery, and other parts from his childhood, and he adds to this collection continually via Ebay. </p>
<p>We still have the book. It’s one of the children’s books that I didn’t give away when my kids outgrew it.</p>
<p>NYMom, we never got to the level of multi level train layouts. Admiring them at the library or the Botanical Garden was much easier! However my younger son likes making Warhammer 4000 boards we did one very much like this: <a href=“http://us.games-workshop.com/games/lotr/terrain/tt_table/main.htm[/url]”>http://us.games-workshop.com/games/lotr/terrain/tt_table/main.htm</a></p>
<p>Cliff, stream, bridge everything.</p>
<p>We still have the book too. I plan to read it to grandchildren. :)</p>
<p>I had to memorize the entire Mass in Latin and then they changed it!!! I can still remember it. Alot of good it does now that I’m an Episcopalian!!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Cadets only go to three Sevices Academies, not all five.</p>
<p>Sorry, midshipmen or cadets…</p>
<p>Adeste Fidelus
(Oh come All Ye Faithful, in Latin)</p>
<p>Public school kids today really miss out! :(</p>
<p>LFWB dad: The Latin Mass is alive and growing–see ecclesiadei.org or unavoce.org for places where you can put your Latin to use.</p>
<p>What’s in my head:</p>
<p>I’m still reciting poems like The Sugarplum Tree, Wynkyn Blynkyn and Nod, The Owl and the Pussycat, etc. to my two-year-old.
Lesser-known Dr. Suess book: I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew:
"I was real happy and carefree and young,
And I lived in a place called the Valley of Vung
Where nothing, not anything, ever went wrong
Until, well, one day I was walking along. . .</p>
<p>(If you think you’ve got troubles, read this book. . .)</p>
<p>I still can do times tables and those lists of helping verbs, prepositions, etc. without hesitation. H claims I know the lyrics of every pop song/show tune of the 20th century. (I’m weak on the 90’s). Too bad I can’t sing. </p>
<p>And there’s the stuff I don’t necessarily want to remember–shorthand, old addresses and phone #'s of dozens of places I’ve lived, “maps” of how to get to places I don’t go anymore (I’m hoping my brain will auto-archive this unused info. soon. . .) Really shameful things that I didn’t really try to memorize, too, like the entire script of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. And stupid high school cheers like (anyone recall this one?)</p>
<p>“Let me see your Frankenstein
What’s that you say?
I said let me see your Frankenstein. . .”</p>
<p>That’s scary. If only Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind were a true story–I’d like to get one of those treatments.</p>
<p>Sick<br>
by Shel Silverstein </p>
<p>“I cannot go to school today,”
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
“I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I’m going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox
And there’s one more–that’s seventeen,
And don’t you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut–my eyes are blue–
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I’m sure that my left leg is broke–
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button’s caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is–what?
What’s that? What’s that you say?
You say today is. . .Saturday?
G’bye, I’m going out to play!”</p>
<p>I used to have most of this memorized, and can still remember the first few lines :)</p>
<p>atomom
I remember that cheer!
Second stanza:
“Let me see your alligator
What’s that you say?
I said, let me see your alligator…”</p>
<p>I also remember:</p>
<p>“How funky is your chicken,
How loose is your goose.
So come on all you ______(add school/mascot name here)
And shake your caboose!”</p>
<p>Very scary!</p>
<p>My kids’ school still does the “let me see your alligator” cheer at the football games with the band playing along. It always gets the biggest response from the students. </p>
<p>We did a cheer that they would never let cheerleaders to do these days
P is for party
A is for all night long
R is for right now
T is for take it slow
Y is for Why not?
P-A-R-T-Y party hardy at “school name” High</p>