Posted by
Gerardine Baugh on Wednesday, September 17, 2008 12:00:00 AM
I grew up in Chicago, Illinois. I moved away from the city thirteen years ago out into the farm lands of the Midwest. I can step outside, at any given time, and hear a cow "Ahh-Ooooing."
Sorry, I haven’t heard the, “Mooo” sound I was taught in Chicago schools. Makes me wonder just how many other things I was lied to about.
Whoa! There Bessie, How could I even believe that my Chicago roots could be planted in lies, payoffs, or back scratching, nepotism, eye gouging political white lies? All this from the sound a cow makes?
I will let Chicago politics lie. Oops, try again; I will leave Chicago politics alone.
My Grandfather use to sing this ditty:
“Chicken in a pot; pot can go; that’s how you say Chi-cka-gou”
The song confused the hell out me as a kid. I would never question my grandfather. Especially, when he was teaching me a song and showing me how to whip a pigeon’s egg across the street into the side of an Oak tree. “Damn flying rats.”
I have to admit, he never said, “Damn”.
That simple song, that intonation, translated to “wild onion.”
Back to the middle of farm country, I can hear those cows. See the stars, and smell the heady aroma of fresh cut wheat. I can, if I wanted to I could find a real wild onion.