My Beginnings as a Kid’s Song Performer

I first began performing kid’s songs when I was in College at about 19 or 20 years old. It was fun and I did it for a friend who was running an after-school kids’ program at a local community center. I would make up kid’s songs at each program as I did not really know what I was doing except that I wanted the kids to have fun. I would make up silly kid’s songs with rhymes with their names or have them do silly action songs. We would also sing classic kids songs like Old MacDonald, and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star – I’ve linked this to the ASL version at We Play Along YouTube channel. I always had a way and enjoyed having fun with kid’s. When I was in my late teens, I felt a bit like Tom Sawyer when he set out the paint and the kids all came and painted a fence for him. In the summer, I would park my 1957 Ford Fairlane Hardtop Convertible and later my 1957 Chevy on the lawn, and put out buckets, sponges, and towels. I would turn on the hose and lots of the kids would come around to wash my car and tell me their stories. I think it was the telling their stories that I enjoyed the best. I listened, laughed, smiled and got my car washed. It was fun for everyone. I went to college planning to become an elementary teacher, but life took some turns and it would be several years before I got back to kid’s songs, except for singing to my own children often making up silly songs for them when they were growing up. Later, this ability to spend time with kids helped me to perform kid’s songs, storytelling, puppetry, and even cowboy trick roping in shows for children’s and family audiences throughout Southern California. See my shows.