A few weekends ago, I headed over to my neighbor's house for a kid's birthday.

My neighbors range from 8-15 years older than me and have multiple kids, but that never stopped us from being close enough pals.

Well, we just got closer.

My wife and I were hanging in the corner having a drink, watching all of the parents try to control their child, or two, when one of our neighbors walked into the living room and headed straight to the toy bin.

She saw something.

It was as if she found the prize at the bottom of the cereal bag. More importantly, she had a glowing smile to her.

Krista, the neighbor, found a child's recorder, likely from grade school.

It was plain-looking. Ugly. Nearly yellow. Boring, just as I remembered them.

What do you think the first three words EVERY adult in the house YELLED as she started playing a familiar tune?

'HOT CROSSED BUNS'. We all exploded, then had many hardy laughs about it.

First of all, many of us were impressed that Krista played 'Hot Crossed Buns' so effortlessly. Second, many of the adults said they could likely STILL to this day play that tune on the recorder.

What I was blown away by was that almost every single adult knew what the recorder was, the tune of the song, the name of the song, and played it at some point.

We all came from different grade schools in New England. Different states. Different ages.

Yet we all knew the stinking recorder.

Was this EVERYONE's first instrument everywhere?

Also, good for the recorder industry, because those suckers and 'Hot Crossed Buns' are still being taught to this damn day.

God bless our music teachers.

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