I-AM-NOT-A-ROBOT Reads “Legend of the Wooden Shoe”

Cousin Froid tried visiting Dr M’s Tree house to read a Dutch fairy tale to the kiddies a couple of weeks ago.  For various reasons he failed to get all the way inside so his voice sounded as hollow and disembodied as a robot’s when he told the legend of the first Klompen (or wooden shoes) from outside.  Cousin Ron said it was hard to understand all the words that way.

Dr M invited him back to tell the story again.  This time, on only the third incantation he tried, the tree house materialized and opened its door for Froid.  Once inside he found Dr M, Nana Lou, Cousin Ron, and the children waiting to hear how the first wooden shoes happened to be crafted.  Yes, of course it was fairies who did it, but the story starts long before that.  Here’s Cousin Froid, AKA Jim Stauffer, reading from The World of Tales:

 

Note: There has been some confusion about Cousin Froid’s name since he introduced himself to the Bergeron family last year. Although the spelling is French, Froid is an immigrant Anglo-Canadian who learned French from bilingual cereal boxes as a teen. While he suspects that all letters after the first consonant may be silent in Québécois French, Cousin Froid and his Anglo family persist in pronouncing his name “Freud” because that’s just how they see it.
Froid is inordinately proud of his distant German ancestry and privately entertains politically incorrect views about other languages (i.e. the French are Germans trying to speak Latin, and the Dutch Language is a corrupted form of die Deutsche Sprache) – hence his inability to form the Dutch words in the story properly.

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Merry Music – But who’s Metadude?

That Magic Memory Mirror is cool- made my first visit this week.  I’d remembered little snapshots and soundbites of song & sound from our lost week, but the mirror revealed a whole lot more that went on.  Our Trailer Song continued to be a hit throughout the week.

 

The children were all dancing and singing to the Burgeron Children’s Song. And the ABC Song was a hit with the real little ones. It wasn’t clear who commissioned it, but little Sally Lou and the other Burgeron children had a cute cow song for our sweet Anna Cow. Although Don Burgeron was rockin’ the joint with his version of “Who Let The Cow’s Out“.

There were group singalongs, requested solos by Nanalou, myself (Rochelle Louridge), Mama Boo and Cousin Ron.  Dr. M even had a go (after she’d had a bit too much of the ol’ Burgeron Backwoods Brew.)  The Headless Inkspots were in fine form performing a great rendition featuring a banjo, ukelele and Strawberry Arizona washboard.

 

But that duet with Nanalou and Cousin Froid was… shall we say… an event that I am amazed any of us could forget.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when my daughter, Amber, and I sang “Motherless Child”

 

Cousin Ron was heard playing the old piano out in the cow barn behind the trailer.

 

Who knew Little Ron Burgeron’s music lessons would pay off in the long run. Piano AND Guitar. The man has talent. But his moonshine induced croning over “Betty-Lou Schaeffner” was a sorry sight.

 

Aunt Sappy was reciting love poetry in all manner of languages. Her German poem “An Anna Blume” was described as a parody of a love poem, an emblem of the chaos and madness of the week.

 

 

But who’s this Metadude guy?  Some of the Burgeron family members were really digging his techno vibe. But the mirror only let me hear the music and allowed me to catch a few glimpses of the story. I’m really curious now.  If anyone has any more detail please share with the rest of us.