Icka Backa, Soda Cracker

MANNERS & MORALS

Insistent in adult ears, the rhythmic tick-tick-tick of jump ropes sounded last week across the land. From Atlanta to San Francisco, from Boston to Dallas, the shrill chant of little-girl voices made loud the early morning's quiet and the twilight's repose. To the irascible, the runes sounded much as ever, but a careful listener could detect differences. In Dallas, little girls chanted:

Dagwood, Dagwood, do you love Blondie?

Yes, no, maybe so, certainly.

Instead of Charlie Chaplin, now:

Betty Grable went to France

To teach the soldiers how to dance.

Salute to the captain, bow to the queen,

And touch the bottom of the submarine.

And it was Betty, "sweet as a rose," who sits "Down in the meadow, where the green grass grows." Donald Duck was a "one-legged duck, two-legged duck, three-legged duck." In Seattle, the singsong went:

Hi, ho, Silver, how about a date?

Meet you at the corner about half past eight.

I can do the rumba, I can do the splits

I can wear my dress up high above my hips.

Bits of flotsam had drifted down from the adult world and lodged in old rhymes. In Denver, the verse went:

Mother, mother, I am ill

Call the doctor from over the hill

In came the doctor, in came the nurse

In came the lady with the alligator purse.

Penicillin, said the doctor.

Penicillin, said the nurse.

Penicillin, said the lady with the alligator purse.

An age which considered Kinsey an authority and Rita Hayworth a Cinderella had left its mark:

Cinderella, dressed in yellow

Went downtown to meet her fella

On the way her panties busted

How many people were disgusted?

But Grandma probably would smile reminiscently at an Atlanta favorite:

Fudge, fudge, call the judge

Mommy's got a newborn baby

'Taint a girl, 'taint a boy

Just a common baby.

Wrap it up in tissue paper.

Drop it down the elevator.

The techniques remained as firmly traditional as "Teddy bear, Teddy bear" or "Icka backa, soda cracker." "Pepper" (fast turns with one hop a turn) was likely to be called "skinning" or "the fasties.'"

Like their elders, the young found modern living full of frustrations:

Bubble gum, bubble gum, chew and blow

Bubble gum, bubble gum, scrape your toe

Bubble gum, bubble gum, tastes so sweet

Get that bubble gum off your feet.

In Boston, a youngster sadly intoned:

Had a little radio

Put it in a tree

Only station I could get

Was WBZ.

Television had not yet invaded their innocence. But skippers had long since succumbed to the radio gag. Now, oldtimers noted sadly the old favorite had become:

Roses are red, violets are blue.

I was very pretty,

Wha' happened to you?

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