It’s funny how the brain works. While I was whittling away on my latest wood carving yesterday, I remembered an incident that happened more than 30 years ago. Why that memory surfaced yesterday is a mystery to me.

Growing up, my siblings and I were pretty avid readers, and our parents encouraged that. I recall bringing home the order forms from … the Scholastic Book Service(?) … and Mom writing checks for the books that I had selected. I don’t recall her ever balking at what or how much I wanted to read. And I did read every book I got through that service.

Anyway, one thing I ended up reading, although I don’t recall whether I or one of my siblings ordered it, was the Mrs. Coverlet series about three children who, due to one circumstance or another, were sometimes left unsupervised for extended periods. I honestly don’t remember much else about the books. Just bits and pieces, really. Including one scene in which the boy was singing his favorite Christmas carol: “Good King Wences car backed out on a piece of Steven.” At least I’m pretty sure that scene was in one of those books.

I think I understood at the time that the boy’s song was a … misinterpretation of some other song, but I didn’t know what the original song was. I had never heard Good King Wenceslas, but I was familiar with alternate song lyrics, having sung things like, “Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg.” But I couldn’t attach Good King Wences to anything.

And that’s the way it remained for 20 years or so, as far as I can recall. I do know that when I was in the movie theater watching Scrooged (1988), there was a scene in which a bunch of boys were singing Good King Wenceslas. I started laughing. I couldn’t stop. After 20 years I finally got the joke. I ended up having to step out into the lobby because I just could not keep quiet.

The good king backing out over Steven is an example of a mondegreen: a misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from a mishearing of the lyrics of a song. That’s different from parody, which is an intentional mangling of the song lyrics. What I find hilarious is that I read the misinterpreted lyric and had to wait two decades before I heard the original song and made the connection. That might be the longest I’ve ever had to wait to “get” a joke.

I’ve wonder from time to time what other little memory bombs are waiting for me. Things that I saw or heard many years ago, that I didn’t understand and didn’t pursue, and have forgotten about. Things that will pop up from the dark recesses of my brain when I encounter the answer to the question I forgot I’d even asked 20 or more years ago.

And I still can’t figure out what prompted me to think about that yesterday, sitting in my shop, idly whittling away on a piece of mesquite. The brain works in strange and mysterious ways.