When I was little and it was a rainy day,
My Mom wouldn’t let me go out to play.
Said I had to stay in or I’d get a cold,
And wouldn’t be able to grow real old.
Wouldn’t be able to enjoy all those years
And spend a lifetime in this vale of tears.
So I’d pester, “What can I do
If I can’t go out to play? ”
And if it wasn’t raining, she’d say,
“Go out and play on the new free way.”
Or my Dad would say, it was his stock,
“Go take a run around the block.”
My Mom, always wanting to be fair
But also wanting me outta her hair
Would suggest,
“Go type on that old Remington machine,
We’ve had that thing since the Pliestocene.”
So I’d get out Dad’s books that had a nice rhyme
And the rest of the day I’d spend my time
Typing some poet that I thought was mellow
My favorite being H. W. Longfellow.
I visualized the smithy and his chestnut tree
Pounding his anvil for all to see.
I never learned to type, but What the Hey!
I’d hunt and peck all through the day.
Later I learned I wasn’t alone on a raft
‘Cause a lot of others hadn’t learned that craft.
That’s why so many young stenos are such home wreckers,
It’s because most of them are huntin’ peckers