IN OLD POD-AUGER TIMES



I 'll sing to you of the good old time

When people were honest and true,

Before their brains were rattled and crazed

By everything strange and new,

When every man was a workingman

And earned his livelihood,

And the women were smart and industrious

And lived for their families' good,

In the days of Andrew Jackson

And of old grand-daddy Grimes,

When a man wasn't judged by the clothes he wore

In old pod-auger times.



Young girls didn't hug nor kiss their fellows

Whenever they came to court,

Nor paddle around on roller skates ,

Nor pound a pianoforte.

They kept their men at a good arm's length

And made them know their place,

And they played upon washboards and "kittles" and brooms

With amazing skill and grace.

They didn't lay a-bed 'til eleven A.M.

Got up in the morning betimes,

And they didn't elope with the old man's coachman

In old pod-auger times.



Young fellows, they loaf about the street

And struggle with had cigars,

They stay out late when they should be at home

With their daddies and their mas.

They wear tight trousers, likewise tight boots,

And guzzle Lager beer,

And when their daddies foot up the bills

They find them pesky dear.

When my old men were farmer's boys

We'd neither dollars nor dimes,

We worked from daybreak till candlelight

In old pod-auger times.



Oh, the young men didn't drive fast horses

Nor gamble with cards and dice,

They didn't run church lotteries,

For it wan't considered nice.

But now they gamble and drink mean rum

And lead hypocritical lives,

And wives run away with each other's husbands

And husbands with other men's wives.

Folks didn't have delirium tremens

Nor perpetrate horrible crimes,

For the cider was good and the rum was pure

In old pod-auger times.



From Vermont Folk-songs and Ballads, Flanders

Collected from Mr. Brown, West Wardsboro, VT 1930

@nostalgia

filename[ PODAUGER

play.exe PODAUGER

RG

===DOCUMENT BOUNDARY