Strolling Through The Park –

"I was strolling through the park one day,
In the merry, merry month of May,
I was taken by surprise, By a pair of roguish eyes,
In a moment my poor heart was stole away!"

Music and Lyrics were composed by by Ed Haley in 1884; the song’s genre was/is "parlor song" and it has an additional verse. BTW (this is an aside) I came across alternate, parody lyrics entitled While Strolling In Iraq One Day on The Boot Newt Sing-A-Long Blog at bootnewt.blogspot.com; I'm guessing those lyrics were written during the presidential campaign.

Anyway...

Dixie Lee and I took our Thursday outing today...we went to one of several parks we enjoy. Suddenly, the lines of this little song began to play in my head and soon I was singing it as we walked. I felt very uninhibited and the little melody continued on, again and again. May really is a "merry" month. Spring has grabbed hold with a firm and lovely grip and the little flora faeries have begun their seasonal dance among the flowers. Now, as the merry month draws to a close, the sultry (I always think of the month of June as sultry, seductive...that’s why the opening line in my song "That’s The Way You Make Me Feel" is "Like a sweet, summer day sometime in June" -- hear it on my Song Page link at www.claralandau.com). I guess it naturally follows that we could ascribe one-word "mood tags" for each month. I’d be very interested in hearing your ideas about that, dear reader. What is the general tone of July, of September, the rest of them? Well, it’s kind of hard, when we’re standing here and straddling the line between being merry and being sultry, to imagine the mood tone for any other time. But let me know if you can!