Escape to Candy Land

By Kathy Kovach

One of my favorite tropes is, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!”

There is no denying what has been happening to our communities, our country, and our world the past couple of months during this pandemic. Many of us have gone underground trying to flatten the curve. Some people have used their self-isolation to be creative, to get closer to their families, or to catch up on their favorite forms of entertainment.

Quarantine is not new, and, as energetic bloggers and meme creators have pointed out, one should never let a good forced confinement go to waste.

Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity in 1665 during the epidemic caused by the bubonic plague. William Shakespeare wrote King Lear during an earlier plague in

London. Victor Hugo, an outspoken critic of French politics, went into isolation to avoid punishment and finished a little piece he had begun earlier called Les Miserable.

The renowned artist Frida Kahlo had contracted polio at an early age and was no stranger to bedrest. But it

wasn’t until she was older that the bus she was riding on in her native Mexico collided with a streetcar. Frida suffered a plethora of broken bones, a dislocated shoulder, and a crushed foot. The severe injuries, including those to her spine and pelvis, sent her back to bed where she discovered a love for art that would later become an emotional outlet. Her now-famous self-portrait was created as she looked at herself in the mirror above her bed.

Another polio sufferer, American teacher Elizabeth R. Abbott, used her creative juices during the polio scare of the 1940s and 50s. While a patient in 1948, she saw a need as she watched children confined inside the hospital walls. Polio wards were often in hospitals miles away from the families who had to work and take care of the

other children. That left the young patients lonely and bored. Out came the butcher paper on which Elizabeth invented a game that would not only keep the little ones busy, but give them a sense of the freedom they craved.

The game was Candy Land, simple enough that a child who couldn’t read would be able to play without an adult. As their imaginations worked their way through a magical land of candy canes and gum drops, they were able to experience the movement that their legs had abandoned. In addition, the bright colors gave them a reprieve from the dull hospital walls and antiseptic atmosphere.

Ms. Abbott, aware of the popularity of the game in her own circles, decided to approach the Milton Bradley company, once known for school supplies but now a pioneer in board games. The original Candy Land sported the same bright primary colors envisioned by its creator and featured a boy and girl, poised to romp down the square-filled path. The boy had a brace on his leg in honor of the children who were the alpha-testers of the game. The brace was later airbrushed away as the game hit the mass market.

Candy Land quickly became Milton Bradley’s bestseller, and has gone on to

entertain children for seventy years. In 2005 it was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame. Elizabeth Abbott must have become crazy rich with her little idea, right?

Wrong.

She donated all of her royalties to children based charities.

Here’s hoping that something good comes out of this lockdown. Something that future historians will look back and marvel on. It won’t happen in my house, however. Life handed us lemons, and we’re kicking back and drinking the lemonade, slow and easy.

A Bouquet of Brides Romance Collection
Meet seven American women who were named for various flowers but struggle to bloom where God planted them. Can love help them grow to their full potential?
"Periwinkle in the Park" by Kathleen Kovach
1910, ColoradoPeriwinkle Winfield is a hiking guide helping to commission a national park. But a run-in with a mountain man who is determined to keep the government off his land may place her in great danger.


 

Kathleen E. Kovach is a Christian romance author published traditionally through Barbour Publishing, Inc. as well as indie. Kathleen and her husband Jim raised two sons while living the nomadic lifestyle for over twenty years in the Air Force. Now planted in northeast Colorado she's a grandmother, though much too young for that. Kathleen is a longstanding member of American Christian Fiction Writers. An award-winning author, she presents spiritual truths with a giggle, proving herself as one of God's peculiar people.

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Ring around the Rosie-Plague or Romance?

By Alanna Radle Rodriguez

Pretty much all of us have played the children’s game “Ring Around the Rosie” when we were younger. Probably even as adults, many who are parents have played it with their young children.

Ring around the Rosie
Pocketful of posies
Ashes, Ashes
We all fall down

For all of you youngsters who have no idea what I’m talking about, the game is where a group of children join hands, dance around in a circle, and at the last line of the rhyme, depending on the version, they either fall down or curtsey. The one who is the last to do it or does it before it everyone else, takes the place as the “rosie” in the center of the circle. And the game starts again. While doing research, I found different versions of the rhyme. In some, the poises weren’t portable. The flowers were in a pot or bottle. Still others, have for the last two lines A Curchey in, A Curchey out, And curchey all together. A curchey is another word for curtsey. The version that I grew up with is the one I put in earlier. So what about the words: Ashes, ashes, we all fall down? Where in the world did that come from? What story of history does this child’s nursery rhyme retell? 


Many have heard the explanation that it is about the plague. And it makes sense! The bubonic plague started roughly in December of 1665 in Britain. The rhyme does seem to describe what happened. Ring around the rosie is the rash on the skin. A pocketful of posies was the package of flowers and herbs kept in the pocket in a superstitious effort to ward off the plague, and yes, they did have pockets in the medieval period. Ashes, ashes, referred to the burning of not only home, house items, and clothing, but the cremation of the dead. We all fall down is talking about those who contracted the sickness, and quite often, died. That explanation doesn’t account for the other versions, including the ones with curtsies in them.

Historians, folklorists and linguistics have found no record of the rhyme after the plague to link it. The first printed record of the rhyme didn’t appear until the late 1880’s. Over 200 years after the plague. The description of the rhyme being connected to the plague actually appeared in the mid-twentieth century. That’s mid 1900’s! So why the time gap? And how do we explain the many different variations? 

Ring-a-around o’roses
Pocketful of posies
A-tishoo!! A-tishoo!
We all fall down!

One explanation is that the rhyme was a fun game for courtship. Just like in almost all of the other beginnings, they circle around, but in this one, instead of falling to the ground, the children curtsey. The one who does that before everyone else, or is the last one, has to fess-up to their love or hug or kiss another child, then take the place in the center of the circle.

 

A ring, a ring o’roses
A pocketful of posies
One for Jack and one for Jim and one for little Moses
A curchey in and a curchey out
And a curchey all together


Round the ring of roses
Pots full of posies
The one who stoops last
Shall tell whom she loves best


The nursery rhyme has even had a parody of it referring it to the bombing of Hiroshima in 1949. “Ring-a-ring-o’-geranium, a pocketful of uranium”. So, is the theory of the rhyme connected to the plague true? If it is, there has to be some reason why it was not sung about for over 200 years. Or is it just people trying to give an explanation to ashes, ashes, we all fall down because they want one? Will we ever know? Probably not. But it’s a fun answer.

Did you grown up with nursery rhymes? Or did you have some parodies of rhymes? What were they? 

Born and raised in Edmond, Oklahoma, Alanna Radle Rodriguez is the great-great granddaughter of one of the first pioneers to settle in Indian Territory. Alanna loves the history of the state and relishes in volunteering at the 1889 Territorial Schoolhouse in Edmond. Her first published story, part of a collaborative novella titled Legacy Letters, came out September 2016. Alanna lives with her husband and parents in the Edmond area. She is currently working on a historical fiction series that takes place in pre-statehood Waterloo, Oklahoma.

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