17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, March 22, 1912:We had some of those recitations repeated this afternoon, but fortunately I wasn’t called upon to say mine. After this was over, we wound up by singing a laughable song.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
What was the hilarious song? An old-time silly song we used to sing when I was a child was Never Make Love in a Buggy. It seems like the sort of song that teens might have enjoyed.
Never Make Love in a Buggy
Never make love in a buggy,
While riding along in the moonlight.
You better be wise,
Potatoes have eyes,
You’re watched from the orchard
By great Northern Spies.
The corn having ears
It might hear you.
While riding o’er hills and dales,
So never make love in a buggy,
For horses carry tails.
Northern Spies refers to an old apple variety.
Recitation
I’ve previously written about the role of recitations in schools (see Pros and Cons of Recitation as a Teaching Method). But, this entry provided another bit of information. Apparently all students were required to memorize a recitation, but only some actually had to recite.
A Hundred Years Ago 
My grandfather remembered some of the long poems he learned to recite in school all the way into his old age… My dad still remembers parts of *The Rime of the Ancient Mariner* even though he suffers from dementia and cannot remember if he ate breakfast or not.
It’s really cool that he can remember it. I also have an elderly father. One of the things that I really enjoy about this blog is that doing it encourages me to talk with him about what things were like in the “good old days” which he can remember surprisingly well.
I’ve never heard that song before but it sure is a fun one. Northern Spies were my father’s favorite apples. I don’t know when he discovered them but he ate them till he died in 1987. One hardly ever hears them mentioned these days.
I found some Northern Spy apples at an Amish market a few years ago–and they were as delicious as I had remembered.
My mom grew up on a farm in WV, she sang this to us when we were little. I’ve searched and searched for it online, thank you!
You’re welcome. I can remember loving to sing this song when I was small.
found it on youtube.com sung by Jody and The Country Cousins
Thanks for the info. It was fun to watch the youtube video. It’s interesting how there are different versions of this song.
We sang this at Campfire Girls camp in the 1940’s. Great fun. We sang every day.
It sounds like so much fun to sing this song at camp.