Ode to Billie Joe Trivia Quiz

Answer: choppin' cotton

The 3rd of June is a good time of year to be balin' hay, as her brother was doin'. However, if choppin' cotton means cutting it for harvest, then our heroine is badly off in her timing. Cotton harvest is from September through to October, depending on the weather.

Answer: y'all remember to wipe your feet

"Y'all", as y'all should know, is only correct when used for the second person plural. One would never say, for instance "Tom, y'all take off that eye make-up". It is equivalent to one of the meanings of the French "vous", or the Northeastern "youse" (as in "Can youse guys help me conjugate this French verb?").

Answer: biscuits

English and Australian players must feel confused when they hear Americans talk of eating biscuits as part of a meal, or, worse, eating biscuits and gravy. Gravy on a shortbread? No thanks! Of course, to Americans and Canadians, a biscuit is an unsweetened, very short quickbread, usually eaten with meals. I sometimes substitute sour cream for the milk, and add a good whack of chopped dillweed, to make a wonderful biscuit for eating with stew.

Answer: plow

Seeing as it's June, and little late for planting anything, I don't quite understand why Papa would be plowing. The logical answer would be 'mow', as this is the time of year to get the hay crop in. However, 'mow' doesn't rhyme with 'anyhow' in the next line. "Mama said it was a shame about Billie Joe, ho ho ho" just doesn't seem to fit the 'tone' of the piece, somehow.

Answer: frog

It may have been a southern leopard frog (Ranasphenocephala) which, unlike most other species of toads and frogs, breeds in the fall, during rainy periods.

Answer: morning

"Dinnertime" among many farm families, refers to the main meal of the day, which is taken at noon. Personally, though, after a meal of black-eyed peas, biscuits, maybe some chicken and coleslaw, and a couple of pieces of apple pie, I'd rather take a little nap than go back out and chop more cotton in the hot sun.

Answer: virus

Perhaps what Papa died of was SARS, which killed an estimated 775 people worldwide, in the spring of 2003.

Answer: Thompson

Becky Thatcher was Tom Sawyer's girlfriend, Becky Sharp is the character from William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" with an eye to the main chance, and Becky Ostawsky lived down the block from me when I was a girl.

Answer: pickin' flowers

"And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge". Seems to me, what with Brother gone to Tupelo, Papa dead, and Mama not doin' "much of anything", our heroine could really be spending her time more productively, or that farm will be facing financial ruin. Can't see how it ever really did well, anyway, they don't seem to know much about farming.

Answer: No

Speculation was rife, let me tell you, in my junior high when this song came out. The more scandalous the possibility, the better. The song leaves us to the fantasies of our sick minds, however, and never says.

I've been informed, since this quiz came out, (and in no uncertain terms, too!) that I am woefully ignorant of Southern farming methods, and that everything the family does is in fact perfectly reasonable. What do I know, I'm a Canadian...