Billy B The Natural Science Song and Dance Man

Every once and a while I get emails like this but this one is particularly powerful.

Dear Billy B,

I wanted to write and thank you for the music that has been part of my life for nearly as long as I can remember.

When I was in kindergarten at The Sundance School in North Plainfield, NJ, sometime around 1983, my school brought you in to sing for us. From that point on, I grew up listening to your album, Billy B Sings About Trees, over and over again. In fact, I still have that record after all these years.

Later, when my daughter Maggie was born, I bought the same album on CD so she could grow up with those songs too. She is 10 now, and today, to celebrate Arbor Day, we played the CD on the drive home from school and sang all the songs together from memory.

It was one of those small moments that suddenly feels much bigger, with songs from my own childhood carried forward into hers. Your music gave us a shared language of trees, nature, curiosity, and joy. It connected my kindergarten self, my daughter, and a spring afternoon in the car more than 40 years later.

Thank you for creating music that has lasted in our family across generations. Thank you for teaching children to notice the natural world, to care about it, and to sing about it. And thank you for giving me the unexpected gift of hearing my daughter sing along to the same songs that shaped some of my earliest memories.

With gratitude,
Tom & Maggie

Hey folks, My band,"Heard of Cats", will be at The Keg&I on this Saturday from 6 to 8. A lot of Beatles covers, some Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, J Geils, some originals and a lot of harmonies. Upbeat, fun and well done. Definitely danceable. And a great selection of brews and ciders. Hope to see you there!

I am so grateful that every couple of months or so I get an email like this........Wow! You exist and are not a figment of my imagination! Talk about finding something from your past life via a random Internet search! I went to Nathan Hale Elementary School in Schaumburg, IL back in the 1970s. I think it was sixth grade with our teacher Mr. Bird (Byrd?), when you came by to visit our class and sing. I'm floored - I still remember "What is a tree?" It's locked into my brain forever. This is so crazy. Well, anyway, you made an impression on a young boy and perhaps influenced the future forever... For what it's worth, I eventually became an Environmental Engineer, and I am currently President of a recycling company. I support various conservation efforts, including ones to preserve and bring back elms, chestnuts and other endangered plant and animal species. I wish you well and thank you for your community service over the years, Billy B!

9-15-2025

To flower in fall
The white surprise
Surrounded
By her jealous sisters
Fat apples
Ready
To drop
Her mother
gnarled,
Tattooed
By the great
Named bird
The yellow belly sap sucker
Is amused
And a bit proud
The human
Considering
Which of the sisters
Is ready
To be picked
Washed
And made ready
For the larder
Or the food bank
Is charmed
The hummingbird
Like an accountant
With a column awry
Keeps returning
To check again
And
like the hummingbird
My thoughts
keep returning
To the fall flower
Happy
To not understand