When Grampa was little

'Twas oh so many years ago
   in village down by the sea,
   that among the old rocks lived a little old crab
   by the name of Fiddle de Dee.
The whole of his heart for all of his days
   was to play in the sand and the sea.

He was an old crab and I a brave lad,
  and the years between us were many,
Yet our time there was grand,
   as we walked in the sand
   with Mum and others, or not any.

Dee was a fiddler; not a good one, it seems,
  eerk eearp was his best refrain.
Mum winced when he played
  and grimaced and swayed
  to the sound like the wreck of a train.

Then one day, through the mist and the haze,
   a pirate ship did appear.
It was pointy in front 
   and tall in the middle,
   and shaped rather round in the rear.

Dee swam to the ship,
   gave the lookout the slip,
   and climbed up the mast to the nest.
"Tis a good life for me,"
   said Fiddle de Dee,
   now a pirate, just like the rest.

Time passed, and more,
  and Dee missed the shore
  and the sand and the waves at his feet.
Still, a pirate was he, with a high perch to see.
It was nice, if you want to explore.

Then suddenly before
  came a glimpse of a shore.
Dee saw it first, and cried out,
"Land Ho!" (more like "land ho.",
  because crabs can't talk very loud.)

          "I shall not leave this land unexplored,"
            yelled Fiddle de Dee to the waves.
          So alone, o'r the side, 
            to swim with the tide,
            leapt he with a 'shout', so brave.

Dee reached the shore
  where we'd sat before,
  and he glared rolly-eyed at me.
"I haven't seen you since morning," I said,
  "and it's nearly quarter to three."
"Perhaps for chips and asparagus tips,
    you'd come share Mum's tea with me."

"But of course I shall.  I've got stories to tell,
   of all the wonders I saw."
"And I've conquered this land
   by my own hand,"
Dee proclaimed while waving his 'claw'.

So passed the day, and we laughed at the way
   it all seemed so wonderfully free.
Two friends could piddle
   and imagine and fiddle
   in the sand and the surf by the sea.

The end.

Oh, yes, the hidden lesson.  
Just because they're little and crabby doesn't mean they don't have some good stories to tell.

(For my imaginative granddaughter whom I admire so much for her courage.)