In Old Pod-Auger Times

DESCRIPTION: "I'll sing to you of the good old times When people were honest and true, Before their brains were rattled and crazed By everything strange and new." The singer grumbles about modern ways, and longs for "old pod-auger times"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1930 (Flanders/Brown-VermontFolkSongsAndBallads)
KEYWORDS: nonballad
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1829-1837 - Presidency of Andrew Jackson
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Flanders/Brown-VermontFolkSongsAndBallads, pp. 69-71, "In Old Pod-Auger Times" (1 text, 1 tune)
Linscott-FolkSongsOfOldNewEngland, pp. 251-253, "In Old Pod-Auger Times" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, PODAUGER*
ST FlBr069 (Partial)
Roud #3739
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Good Old Days of Adam and Eve" (theme) and references there
cf. "The Old Pod Auger Days" (pod auger theme)
cf. "The Old Chesuncook Road" (pod auger theme, plus thoughts about the old days)
NOTES [228 words]: We really need a keyword "Whining-about-the-end-of-the-good-old-days." See the cross-references for similar songs.
The song lists the time of Andrew Jackson as the ideal, but I can't see anything in it that's specific to that era.
Linscott-FolkSongsOfOldNewEngland states that this comes from Comical Brown's Songs, after "Comical Brown," whom she describes as a nineteenth century solo performer. She gives no other details, however.
According to Young,p. 134, "pod auger days" or "pot auger days" refer to "a long time ago. From the era when fireplaces were used for cooking. A pot auger was an adjustable pot hanger which could raise and lower the pot over the fire to control the cooking temperature." StoryKirwinWiddowson, p. 384, cite various American usages, the earliest in 1833 (i.e. just about the time Andrew Jackson was re-elected) and the last in Maine in 1887, but cite eight Newfoundland uses; it would appear that the term is still in use there, but probably not in the United States.
It was probably still in use in the Canadian Maritimes, or perhaps in New England, around the turn of the twentieth century, since Larry Gorman clearly knew this song, and understood it, basing his piece "The Old Pod Auger Days" on it. Roud lumps the two, and certainly the ideas are very similar, but since the Gorman song is a clear rewrite, I've split them.- RBW
Bibliography

StoryKirwinWiddowson: G. M. Story, W. J. Kirwin, and J. D. A. Widdowson, editors, Dictionary of Newfoundland English, second edition with supplement, Breakwater Pres, 1990
Young: Ron Young, Dictionary of Newfoundland and Labrador, Downhome Publishing Inc

Last updated in version 6.1
File: FlBr069

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