A-Soalin'

We often sang this in the car when the boys were small, not always at Christmas.  In their first few years, they grew up in a culture that we gradually moved away from.  I told a young friend at work that she had already spent half the childhood time with her son, just turning six.  She was not pleased, but I don't mind - it's true.  Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.  When I write about family culture, it is a touch odd that the earlier, likely more formative culture, cannot be accessed by them as easily as the later culture. We remember much less of our earliest years - except for Ben, of course who insists that he remembers everything.  Once in his rage he insisted that he knew something before Jonathan because he had dreamed it before he was born.  Didn't give an inch, that boy.