Celebrate?
May 1, 2012 (Tuesday)
Today is “May Day,” which once was celebrated with much more exuberance than it is today. When I was in elementary school around 1940 or 1941, it was a “big deal,” with the kids dressed up in costumes and a maypole.
As I recall, the maypole was the last event on the program, and we each held on to a very long strip of crepe paper, brightly colored, and skipped around the pole, braiding the paper as we went. When we completed all our circuits around the pole, the multi-colored paper transformed it into a real maypole, whatever that was supposed to be.
The maypole thing was preceded with dances around it by the boys and girls. I remember a couple of those. In one of them I was dressed in a sailor suit, and sort of hopped from foot to foot, alternately placing my hands at my waist and at my back, to the tune of “Sailing, sailing over the bounding main..”
Another of those dances involved girl-boy partners dressed like little cowboys and cowgirls and we sort of skipped as we moved around the pole to “Put your little foot, put your little foot, put your little foot right here..” (or “there” maybe). We always did something from year to year. I’m sure the adults found it hard to be cheerful and happy-go-lucky at those May Day celebrations as the war in Europe was about to involve our own country. As a matter of fact, I recall one day at school when the radio was tied into the public address system and Hitler’s speech was broadcast so that the entire student body could hear it.
So the memories are both happy and sad. A microcosm of life itself, which includes experiences of all kinds.
I’m not sure if “May Day” has much meaning for us anymore, but I hope yours is a happy day.
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(This blog resembles one from September 2007. Click here if you like).