Darkly sarcastic and sardonically wry We hummed and we danced to American Pie Rolling thunder over head Kool-Aid, Keds, and Wonder Bread Vietnam served us the blues Cronkite was the nightly news Worry traveled through the air And stuck to faces everywhere They shipped us to the VanHoff School We learned about the golden rule Over finger paints and duck-duck goose and thermoses of apple juice Jungle-gyms and trampolines Wacky Packs and Mad Magazine Baseball hats and Spider bikes Dad’s Gannset beer Mom’s Lucky Strikes Kick Ball, Fishing, Doorbell ditch Watching reruns of Bewitched Nixon, Agnew, and John Dean Shaving cream on Halloween They shipped us to the VanHoff School We learned about the golden rule Over finger paints and duck-duck goose and thermoses of apple juice Watergate was all around in our sight and in our sound on the news and in the paper the Viet Cong and foiled caper It lurked and hovered overhead Pages written and words were said it wormed its way into our head that innocence was finally dead in undercurrents a subtext grew a dye was cast for me and you we dipped our bread into the stew enjoyed the dark side of our view They shipped us to the VanHoff School We learned about the golden rule Over finger paints and duck-duck goose and thermoses full of apple juice They shipped us to the VanHoff School We learned about the golden rule Over finger paints and duck-duck goose and thermoses of apple juice
