I have a job typing up letters a family friend has saved from several generations back. My current project is Jimmy, her great uncle who died in combat near Anzio on May 23, 1944. In a letter home from Fort McClellan, Alabama on May 6, 1943, Jimmy is telling his parents that the boys were doing work gathering rocks to line drainage ditches. In the middle of him saying this, he puts in parentheses and quotes the phrase "gathering rocks in May," like it's an inside joke or a pop culture reference. Can anyone help me with this? I cannot find anything about it anywhere on the Internet. It could just be an inside joke, but I would like to know if there are any other possibilities. I understand this is a very specific question.
It could be a nursery rhyme reference.
Here we go gathering nuts in May,
Nuts in May, nuts in May,
Here we go gathering nuts in May,
On a cold and frosty morning.
This Traditional Ballad Index listing says:
FOUND IN: Britain(England(Lond,South),Scotland(Aber)) US(Ap,MW,NE,So) Canada(Ont)
but that is certainly not an exhaustive list of where it was known.