27 July 2021 - caissons

When I was a wee sprog in school, teachers lined us up and taught us to sing “The Caissons are Rolling Along”, an army song from the age of horse-drawn artillery. I had no idea what the song was about, but dutifully sang along, and I remember the irritating tune to this day. Why did they teach small children something so obsolete and so irrelevant that it was virtually unintelligible? Probably for the same reasons that kids today are taught long division and how to add fractions.