Reuben, Reuben ...

 

Don’t bother to ask where this one came from. It just seems that my brain, like a dripping faucet, is dropping memories into my sink of consciousness, where, I’ve discovered, the only way to clean them up is to write about them.

So today (somehow) I began thinking about that old camp song I used to know: “Reuben and Rachel”—remember it?

I didn’t, either—not all of it. But Good Old Google supplied the rest of it for me, though I quickly discovered that there are many varied alterations of the lyrics.

Reuben, Reuben I've been thinking
What a grand world this would be
If the boys were all transported
Far beyond the Northern sea!

Rachael, Rachel I've been thinking
What a grand world this would be
If the girls were all transported
Far beyond the Northern sea!

Oh my goodness gracious, Ruben,
What a sad world this would be,
If the boys were all transported
Far beyond the Northern sea!

Oh my goodness gracious, Rachel,
What a weird world this would be,

If the girls were all transported
Far beyond the northern sea.

As I recall (from church camp?) the girls would sing the first and third verses, the boys the second and fourth. I also recall a kind of competition in volume, especially with the first two verses.

These were the junior high years when not all boys and girls ... got along. Many of us boys wanted to get along, but, especially in the early years, did not want to reveal that to the other boys—or to the girls. And we boys assumed the girls had no interest in us, as well.

(Many of them didn’t, I later learned. Many of us were still pre-pubescent, and many of the girls were more interested in the manly sophomores.)

(By the way, here is a link to some singing of the song—the lyrics are somewhat different because I pasted here the original lyrics and music from 1871–pictured at the top of the page!)

A far older song than I’d thought—but it still continues to contain its original notion, that the world would be a lousy place without, you know, those other people whom we somehow find ... attractive (after we’re through hating them).

As I would discover.