Chickens in the Trees

I don't know how many years ago I saw this on Sesame Street. Not lately is all I'll say. For some reason though it has stuck in my brain all these years. I evidently learned to juggle while watching this because every time I juggle I start singing this. No kidding. I'm not a great juggler. 3 balls, no more, no fancy tricks. But I have this catchy theme song and I can't juggle without at least humming, "there are chickens in the trees".

So, that's crazy enough, right? But wait, there's more. I bring this up because at our church this week we have had Vacation Bible School and to keep the kids in place while the teachers prepared something else, I got the juggling balls out and started singing this song (of course). And the kids loved it and sang along louder than any other song.

I should have known they would enjoy it. It even entertains kids who don't speak English. Several years ago I went to Mexico on a mission trip and found myself in a similar situation where there were a lot of kids with nothing to do for a few minutes so I started doing my thing, juggling and singing. And I sing worse than I juggle, by the way but kids don't care so neither do I. Anyway, even though they couldn't speak a word of English they sang "Chickens in the Trees" at the top of their voices!

Our last day in Mexico we were able to go to a market that was about 30 minutes away. We were shopping in this crowded market where nobody spoke a word of English, well off the tourist path. I was glancing at some souvenir potential when from behind some hanging serapes a woman sang out quietly in very broken English, "cheekens in de treees", and she smiled at me. She was evidently the mother of one of the kids at the church and had heard us singing. Now...go listen to something else so you can get the song out of your head.