Up The Skaggerak

We talked about Friday the 13th superstitions the other day (Friday the 13th, I think it was), and from what I could tell, no one near me freaked out over anything, and we all lived happily ever after.

But maybe that was because I was not in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, where, on Friday the 13th, a 13-year old airplane (aeroplane, as the orange man says it) designated as Finnair Flight 666 took off for the ninety-minute flight to HEL.  HELsinki, Finland, to be exact.

And I couldn't tell you why people who are in Copenhagen ("Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen," as we sang it at dear old Hampton Elementary, from the Danny Kaye movie about Hans Christian Andersen) would want to go to Helsinki, but they piled onto the plane, and against all odds...

It landed safely.  Early, as matter of fact.  

Well, there goes that superstition.  

Now, let's try to figure out why second-graders in my day sang songs with words like:

 

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen 

Friendly old girl of a town 

'Neath her tavern light 

On this merry night 

Let us clink and drink one down 

To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen 

Salty old queen of the sea 

Once I sailed away 

But I'm home today 

Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful 

Copenhagen for me 

I sailed up the Skagerrak 

And sailed down the Kattegat 

Through the harbor and up to the quay 

And there she stands waiting for me 

With a welcome so warm and so gay 

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen 

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen 

Friendly old girl of a town 

'Neath her tavern light 

On this merry night 

Let us clink and drink one down 

To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen 

Salty old queen of the sea 

Once I sailed away 

But I'm home today 

Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful 

Copenhagen for me 

And of course, the next year we were singing about Mammy's little baby liking shortnin' bread in minstrel accents.  Elementary school music classes got me like ???