Despite Our Tattered Knees There's an old oak tree where us kids used to play In the bottom of a pasture that was planted in hay A red oak it was near eighty feet tall That stood by itself majestic to all Limbs like thick arms spread into the sky Were filled up with leaves where squirrels would hide And round bout its trunk some farmer had put A split rail wood fence to protect well its roots Well, a gang of us boys would climb that there fence And walk the top rail without human sense A chasin' each other 'round that big tree Faster and faster, Abner, Joe, Moe and me Fearless of fallin' and reckless of heart Seemed we was practicin' for some circus art The game got even better when we speeded up the pace And turned our act of darin' right into a race "Better not let Moe a catch you" was the motto of the day Or upside-down and bruised for sure on hard cold ground you'd lay And Abner's little brother Joe was bigger than the rest So if he got you by the shirt there wasn't any test The end of this here enterprize declared right from the start A heap of us boys on the ground a hollerin' each his part Till finally we caught our breaths to up and go again Better times there never was with kith or closest kin That old oak tree a lookin' down I reckon now with glee To see us boys a havin' fun despite our tattered knees. © 1982 Daniel K. Statnekov