Jim Croce "You Don't Mess Around With Jim"

A couple of months back, I was looking for an easy hook for a series of blog posts to launch while I was on vacation.  I wrote about words I'd learned from songs.

But my education-via-records wasn't limited to just vocabulary words.  I learned a thing or two about the world, as well.

We had Jim Croce's Greatest Hits in our LP collection, and of course, "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" was a favorite of mine, and of practically any kid who'd ever heard it.

Now, at a young age I understood Superheros.  But not physics.

So I understood that it was rude to tug on Superman's cape.

And you'd ruin his secret identity, if you pulled the mask off the Lone Ranger.

But I had to ask my Dad, "Why does he say, 'You don't spit into the wind.'?"

Dad gave me that look that---now that I'm a Dad myself---I know so well.

It's a look that says, "Are you kidding me?" followed by "Are you an idiot?" followed by "Oh yeah, you're too young to understand the laws of physics."

If you've never done it, and you've never seen anyone do it, and you're 6, how would you know that spitting into the wind will come right back in your face?


Hear the song on Youtube.