“We sing when we are happy, we sing when we are sad,

We sing when we are falling in and out from day to day.

There is singing in a shower as when we are getting in and out of bed.

However, the song that rings within me is for learning English tongue instead.

I heard it on a radio, oh so long ago though the words did not make sense to me.

Yet the sound so sweet and gentle caused me to repeat them repeatedly.

Soon they were on my tongue and in my heart, until I knew the meaning of them.

The simple song thought me how to enunciate with ease.

The song that some of you remember, those younger might want to hear.

It was a fine tool for me, but taught a lesson too.

I can’t recall my mother, I can’t remember dad

Mister and Mississippi was all I ever had.

Oh, I was born to wonder and I was born to roam.

Mister and Mississippi made me feel at home.

My cradle was a river, my school a rivers’ boat.

My teacher was a gambler, the slickest one afloat.

He thought me not to gamble on a petticoat.

Oh, I was born to wonder, I was born to roam

And mister and Mississippi made me feel at home.

Oh darling how I love you what more is there to say.

I love you as a barefoot boy loves a summer day.

The way the wondering gypsy loves the changing sea.

Just like the restless river loves old New Orleans.

Oh, I was born to wonder; I was born to roam,

Mister and Mississippi made me feel at home.

I love a tiny village a quiet country town,

A house a little garden, with kiddies running ’round,

You would be a faithful husband: I would be a trustful friend,

Until I heard that steamboat coming ’round the bend.

Oh, I was born to wonder; I was born to roam,

Mister and Mississippi made me feel at home.”

Those were the days when songs were clear and simple, and a good story did they tell. A moral was included and words one could understand. It truly expedited my learning how to speak English language well. We had emigrated as refugees, from war torn Europe, to the United States of America. We became citizens of The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.