Oh, my gosh, Katherine, you sure did your homework on a Sunday!
Asa Mercer. That was it! That was what I remembered from my genealogy days.
As for the theme song, believe it or not, it was "Like a beautiful child, growing up free and wild" that escaped my memory. The rest of the first verse I remembered.
While I don't question your research, I'm not always prepared to trust lyric web sites implicitly.
"Some set pine trees in the air" makes no sense to me. My memory--which we've established is not always reliable
--is that the line should be "Scent of pine trees in the air." But then maybe all those years ago my ears just heard what made sense to my mind, if you follow me.
In any case, my memory of those two lines is:
Scent of pine trees in the air
Don't just stand around and stare
The "stand around and stare" doesn't give me a memory problem, but I don't have complete confidence in the "Don't just" part.
Oh, yeah, my memory also gives that next-to-last line of the first stanza as:
"Full of dreams to last the years"
But, again, maybe the ears heard what made sense to the mind.
Anyway, thanks for digging this up, and the information about the Mercer Girls. Props to you for your investigative skills!
