Hopscotching From House to House

I can't get the tune "Hopscotch Polka"
out of my head this morning.
Where did it come from?
Dredging up the memory of breakfast
at a diner in Elm Grove,
playing music on the jukebox,
Les Paul and Mary Ford,
The Tennessee Waltz.

Mom and Dad had miscalculated
on the new house,
it was not ready to move into
and we had to move out of the old house.
They found an attic floor in a farmhouse down the road,
an older couple willing to take us in for a few months,
and over Christmas to boot.

For Bill and I it was an adventure,
but it must have been a nightmare for our parents.
We hopscotched from house to house in those early years,
four in all, within three blocks of each other.

An endless dance in the suburbs
that had no happy ending,
like some children's' nursery rhymes,
innocent as a baby's face,
but a red-tailed devil lurks
as we read between the lines.

Song
You hop a little on your little left shoe
you hop a little on your right one too,
you kick a button like the Scotch kids do,
it's the hopscotch polka.

© Jane Rades
2012

 

Bruce Barton, Untitled, Painting