Author Archives: Noelle Schwarz

Haunted Quarry

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: May 2nd, 2021
Primary Language: English

Background

The informant, Chase, is the brother of the interviewer. He grew up in Chicago, Illinois where he currently resides. 

Context

Chase tells the interviewer about a haunted quarry where he used to work.

Transcript 

“Every summer in high school I have worked at a kayaking company. In the center of town is this ancient quarry that they have filled with water so it looks like a small lake. I taught kayaking and paddle boarding lessons on the quarry. The company rented out these kayaks and paddle boards to anyone in town. So over the quarry is this big bridge that a lot of cars drive over. It is pretty busy. People at work always claimed that like sixty years ago this family was driving across the bridge, but the dad was drunk and speeding and accidentally drove their car off the bridge into the quarry. They say it was too deep to retrieve the car or people and if you were able to dive down deep enough you would still be able to see the car and their bodies. Sometimes, at night, you can see the ghosts of the family crying in the middle of the quarry. I personally have never seen any shit like that before, despite all my years working there. I do believe that someone could easily drive off the bridge, it kinda looks like an accident waiting to happen. But I don’t really believe that they didn’t retrieve the car or people’s bodies. It’s definitely a fun story to tell though.”

Thoughts

I too worked at the quarry throughout high school. I never had an encounter with the spirits like other people at worked described and I don’t really believe it either. I do agree that the story of someone driving off the bridge accidentally is probably true, but I can’t imagine the quarry is so deep they cannot retrieve the bodies. It is very interesting town lore though.

Miss Mary

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: May 2nd, 2021
Primary Language: English

Background

The informant, Chase, is the brother of the interviewer. She grew up in Chicago, Illinois where he currently resides. 

Context

Chase tells the interviewer about a childhood rhyme they would sing on the playground.

Transcript 

“So this rhyme you would sing to your friends on the playground. It was always funny as kids because the words sound like they are about to be swear words, but then they are not. So no adults could get you in trouble for saying them because you didn’t actually say them. I learned it from you [interviewer] who learned it from our older cousin, Jordan.

The rhyme goes like this: ‘Miss Mary had a steamboat, Her steamboat had a bell. Miss Mary went to heaven, Her steamboat went to… Hell-o operator, give me number nine. If you disconnect me, I’ll kick you in the… Behind the refrigerator, there was a piece of glass.

Miss Mary sat upon it, and broke her little… Ask me no more questions, tell me no more lies.

The cows are in the pasture, eating chocolate pies, pies, pies. Miss Mary went to London, Miss Mary went to France. A french man pulled down Miss Mary’s underpants, pants, pants.’

I told all of my friends who thought it was the funniest thing. We would sing it all the time on the playground.

Thoughts

This is a very funny rhyme for kids. It is interesting how vast children’s folklore is and how quickly it can travel. My cousin who taught this to me is from Kentucky. All it took was one visit for Thanksgiving, and suddenly a rhyme kids in Kentucky sing made it all the way to a playground in Chicago.

Girl Scout Pins

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: April 5th, 2021
Primary Language: English

Background

The informant, Katie, is a childhood friend of the interviewer. They grew up next door to each other and have been friends for sixteen years. They both went to girl scout camp every year from kindergarten to fifth grade.

Context

Katie discusses the sharing of girl scout pins at camp and the meaning behind it. 

Transcript 

“Every year we went to this girl scout camp, retreat thing. This particular year that I’m talking about it was held at White Pines ranch. Girl scout troops from all over Illinois came to this. Every year we do this pin exchange thing where we basically create our own pins and we create like a ton of them and then exchange them with other girls at the camp. Every troop creates a different kind of pin and they always have some story or meaning behind them. So our troop this particular year created s’more pins. So we took little pieces of tan felt, serving as the graham cracker, and glued on little pieces of brown felt for the chocolate. We then attached a white pom poms as the marshmallow and added another piece of tan felt for the second graham cracker. Then we glued these on to safety pins. Every girl in our troop made like twenty. The meaning behind them was two fold. S’mores were a very important part of our troop. At every campout and get together we would always make s’mores and sing songs and tell stories. The s’mores also represented our troop because many different kinds of girls could come together and make something incredible, our troop, just like how all these different kinds of ingredients came together to make something incredible, s’mores. Kind of cliche, I know, but we were like eight so… Anyway, the first night of the camp all the girls from all sorts of troops all over Illinois would come to the fire and we were each given a blank hat. Then you were asked to trade pins with all the other girls and put them on your hat. By the end of the night, you’d have this really cool decorated hat with all kinds of pins. I think I may still have my hat somewhere in my mom’s attic. It was a really fun activity because you got to meet with all sorts of other girls and talk to them and explain the meaning behind your pin and listen to them explain the meaning behind their pins.”

Thoughts

As someone who also participated in this activity, I thought it was very fun as a kid and still enjoy looking back on it. It is an interesting thing to study from a folklore perspective because we were able to spread stories of our troop to other girl scout troops through the ritual of giving and receiving pins. After exchanging the pins, we would sit back down with our troop and talk about which pins we got and continue to trade even more for the really cool ones. By giving someone a gift you are showing that you appreciate them and they are doing the same to you by giving you one back. This is a great way to make friends. It also allows us to learn about other girl scout troops and the history of their troops. 

Bo Bo Ski Rotten

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: April 5th, 2021
Primary Language: English

Background

The informant, Katie, is a childhood friend of the interviewer. They grew up next door to each other and have been friends for sixteen years.

Context

Katie discusses a childhood game that her and the interviewer used to play with their friends on the playground in Elementary and Middle School. 

Transcript 

“We would all sit in a circle at recess, usually a huge group of us. Each person would put their left hand under the person sitting next to them’s right hand, so if we were sitting next to each other I’d put my left hand under your right hand. Then with the right hand, you put your right hand over the other person’s left hand. We all sing a song and on each beat you take your right hand and swing it around to hit, or more so clap, the person next to you’s hand left hand. For example, when person A’s hand is hit by person Z, then person A must hit the person B’s hand, then person B must hit person C, and so on and so forth, going on in a continuous circle. It’s basically hot potato, but you are passing a hit, instead of a potato. 

The song goes like this [verse one]: Bo bo ski rotten totten / I- I say boys are rotten / Itty bitty rotten totten / Bo bo ski rotten totten / Bo bo ski rotten totten. 

Then the tempo speeds up and you go really fast.

 Verse two goes: Mickey mouse had a house / Donald Duck messed it up / Who will pay the consequences.

Then it speeds up even more.

Verse three goes: Y O U spells you and you are out.

You do not want to get your hand hit on the word ‘out’, otherwise you will be out of the game. So you can try and move your hand really fast to not get out. If the person who was supposed to hit you, hits their own hand instead, because you moved yours off of there’s fast enough, than that person is out instead of you. It’s a really fun, competitive game. We played it a lot at girl scouts too. In middle school, if boys ever played with us we would change the line “boys are rotten” to “fish are rotten” so that the boys would think we were cool and didn’t hate them.”

Thoughts

This game was really fun, I remember playing it a lot. It is interesting how much folklore happens on the school playground. This is just one example of many hand / song game combos we would play. I’m not sure how we originally learned about it. I assume, we learned it from some girl on the playground, who learned it from someone else, who learned it from someone else, ect. When I moved from Chicago to Los Angeles for college I found myself one night talking with my LA friends about this game. They knew the general premise, but had different words for the song that I can no longer remember. This was fascinating to me as it shows how folklore is so malleable and can adapt and change with every person who tells it.