More About That Kangaroo

In a previous post, I mentioned how I discovered music through an old novelty song, "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport."

What prompted that memory was attending a members' showcase concert by the local folksinging society to which I belong. Of the five performers, I am friends with three, so despite the cold and snow my wife and I happily went. It was a great show.

Just before the concert started, I was talking with one of the friends, and she turned to one of the organizers and said I should perform at a future concert! He said that would be fine. Ulp. 

She was only half joking. After she performed, she said I really should think about it.

While I have played and sung regularly at church and for my Fraternity, i have not performed in a folk setting in years! But the idea got me thinking.

One of the songs I used to perform was Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport. I thought of the story behind the significance of the song for for me. It would be one of the songs I would consider if I did play for a members' showcase.

Each performer does six or seven songs. I started thinking about what songs I might do.

Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport

Bottle Of Wine

I Am Going Home (original)

Hey! Hey! Hey! I'm Gonna Live Til The Day I Die (original)

Oh Sinner Man 

Get Up And Go 

Never Ending Song Of Love

Walking Down The Line 

They'd all be possibilities. Maybe Pete Seeger's version of "Old Time Religion"? Perhaps "There's a Place In The World For A Gambler"? "The Swimming Song"? 

There might be a few more I'd consider. 

It would be nice to perform again. 

Pax et bonum

Read in 2025: The Tally

I began the year with certain reading goals:

60-70 works, 15,000 pages
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, and Have His Carcase - by Dorothy Sayers
A Dickens novel (Little Dorrit or Our Mutual Friend)
Lord of the Rings (reread)
Kristin Lavransdatter
Apologia Pro Vita Sua (reread)
Bio/Study of Newman
The Poet and the Lunatics (Chesterton)
Some Mystery novels
Some Encyclicals

With one day to go, I'm not likely to finish another work, so here is the tally for 2025:2025 -  76 Books - Page Count -  17,312 pages

Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography by Holly Ordway

The Sermons of the Cure of Ars

John Henry Newman: Snapdragon in the Wall by Joyce Sugg

Apologia Pro Vita Sua by St. John Henry Cardinal Newman

The Epistle of Barnabas

The Epistle to Diognetus

The Didache

Letter to the Corinthians - Clement of Rome

Simplicity by John Michael Talbot with Dan O’Neill

Peace on Earth (Pacem In Terris) - Pope St. John XXIII

Christianity and Social Progress (Mater et Magistra) by Pope St. John XXIII

The Redeemer of Man (Redemptor Hominis) by Pope St. John Paul II

St. Thomas More by E. E. Reynolds

Catherine of Siena by Sigrid Undset

God’s Troubadour: The Story of Saint Francis of Assisi by Sophie Jewett

The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius

The Real Story: Understanding the Big Picture of the Bible by Edward Sri and Curtis Martin

33 Days to Eucharistic Glory

Set All Afire (St. Francis Xavier) by Louis de Wohl

Because God is Real by Peter J. Kreeft

The Poet and the Lunatics by G. K. Chesterton

The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton

Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset 

     The Wreath by Sigrid Undset 

     The Wife by Sigrid Undset 

     The Cross by Sigrid Undset 

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

     The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

      The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien

      The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien

Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Fool Of New York City by Michael D. O’Brien

Father Malachy’s Miracle by Bruce Marshall

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers  

Have His Carcase by Dorothy Sayers

Murder in the Lincoln White House by C. M. Gleason

Murder at the Capitol by C. M. Gleason

The Vanishing Woman by Fiorella De Maria

See No Evil by Fiorella De Maria

Death of a Scholar by Fiorella De Maria

Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie

A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie

Rough Cider by Peter Lovesey

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

The Holy Thief by Ellis Peters

Dead Man’s Ransom by Ellis Peters

The Surprise by G. K. Chesterton

The Judgement of Dr. Johnson by G. K. Chesterton  

No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre

Medea by Euripides

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne  

John the Balladeer by Manly Wade Wellman

The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells

The Food of the Gods by H. G. Wells

In the Days of the Comet by H. G. Wells

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Selected Poems

The Life and Zen Haiku Poetry of Santoka Taneda by Sumita Oyama (translated by William

        Scott Wilson

A Good Time Was Had By All by Stevie Smith

Tender Only To One by Stevie Smith

Mother, What Is Man? by Stevie Smith

Harold’s Leap by Stevie Smith

Not Waving But Drowning by Stevie Smith

Haiku selected and edited by Peter Washington

Ginko Gold anthology

Christmas Presence: Twelve Gifts That Were More Than They Seemed 

     edited by Gregory F. Augustine Pierce

Christmas Curiosities: Odd, Dark, and Forgotten Christmas by John Grossman

The Autobiography of Santa Claus by Jeff Guinn

Making the Best of What’s Left by Judith Viorst

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-50 by Susan Campbell Bartoletti  

John Adams by David McCullough

The usual eclectic mix. I read more works and pages than I had planned. Some good reads. Some clunkers.

I'm now up to 597 works read since I started keeping count in 2013.

Pax et bonum

About That Kangaroo

As a young child, I lived in a home where there was little to no music. My mother was hearing impaired, and my father was painfully tone deaf.

Then one day my father and I went fishing. As we were driving to a favorite fishing site, my father turned on the radio.

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Suddenly a novelty song that was popular at that time came on.

“Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport.”

I listened, transfixed.

It was in that moment that I discovered music.

From that moment on I began listening to the radio, and eventually got a record player and began acquiring records.

Later, when I learned how to play guitar, I learned that song. It was one of the first songs I performed back in my coffee house days.

Yeah, I know the man behind the song, Rolf Harris, later ran afoul of the law for sexually-related offences, was convicted, and went to prison. I also know the original version of the song contained a lyric that racially incentive. But that verse got eliminated, and I certainly don’t include it.

But hey, the song remains. And I will continue to perform it.

Even if they tan me hide.

Pax et bonum

2026 Reading Goals

I had a good reading year in 2025, meeting all my goals. Time to set the goals for 2026.

60-70 works, 15,000 pages
A biography/autobiography of a saint
A book about a saint
A secular biography
At least two documents of Vatican II
Several spiritual works
A book by G. K. Chesterton I have not yet read
A book about G. K. Chesterton
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J. R. R. Tolkien
A book by C. S. Lewis, possibly a reread.
A book by Charles Dickens I have not yet read (Our Mutual Friend?)
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
A book by Michael O'Brien
A book by Dostoevsky (The Possessed?)
At least one history book
Several mysteries
Several poetry collections
Several plays

Pax et bonum

Tolkien - Bilbo's Last Song

Bilbo's Last Song
(At the Grey Havens)

Day is ended, dim my eyes,
but journey long before me lies.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship's beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Foam is salt, the wind is free;
I hear the rising of the Sea.

Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
the wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
beneath the ever-bending sky,
but islands lie behind the Sun
that I shall raise ere all is done;
lands there are to west of West,
where night is quiet and sleep is rest.

Guided by the Lonely Star,
beyond the utmost harbour-bar
I'll find the havens fair and free,
and beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the West,
and fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-Earth at last.
I see the Star above your mast!

Pax et bonum

The Monkees - Riu Chiu (Official HD Music Video)

Last Christmas Gig of 2025

Miracle Field of Greater Rochester Christmas party, December 20, 2025.

 

Pax et bonum