“So long ago,” Old Ned did recall,
“So long ago, time quickly passes, it does appal.”
“I remember, clearly, when I was born,”
“From the womb of my mother, I was torn.”
But, Ned, that is hard to believe,
Do you also remember when you did conceive?
“Now, that, is a little too far fetched.”
“But I remember my Pappy, who was there when he retched.”
“Yes, retched at the very sight of me,”
“Always most sensitive about that, I do be!”
Perhaps in the mists of the past, you think you do recall?
Such unusual details, yes, one and all.
“No, imagination is not the explanatory cause,”
“I remember it all well, without pause.”
“They didn’t have cameras, way back then,”
“But I suppose I could have done a sketch, with my pen.”
You must have been too young to draw and sketch?
Although, I don’t doubt you were a bright little wretch.
“My Mammy used to say I was nice as pie.”
“I often wonder why she said it, yes, I do wonder why.”

Well, old Ned dozed off, wondering just that.
And, when he awoke, he looked for his hat.
“My Mammy and Pappy, they did work so hard,”
“Day work. Then growing veges in the yard.”
“Life was hard, in the Great Depression,”
“But there it was, no going back, no regression.”
“We made it through, just, fortunately.”
“Mostly we only had potatoes for tea.”
“It was, indeed, the school of hard knocks,”
“For toys, all I ever had was rocks and rocks.”
“Folks today, they don’t know what it was like.”
“My Pappy walking ten miles to work, because he had no bike.”
“My Mammy and Pappy died long ago.”
“Thin, wretched, broken-hearted, don’t you know?”
“Their faces lined with heavy scores, from life.”
“She died first, then him. Couldn’t live without his wife.”
“Hardships and wars, with little to break,”
“The harsh routine, that Great Depression intake!”
“Of course, there were those of whom we have not uttered.”
“They were the well-off, whose bread was buttered.”
“For them, things were not so bad,”
“Due to their money, which they had.”
“But, in the end, it is all the same,”
“For rich and poor, destitute and lame.”
“When we come right down to it there is only one result,”
“Friends in a cemetery, be they smart or a dolt!”