In the lexicon of sailors and pilots, mayday, which comes from the French term m'aidez, means "help me." But May Day, as in May 1, is the international equivalent of Labor Day—a celebration of workers. Too often, it is a day of sometimes violent protests as those who work long and hard hours at their jobs try to gain better working conditions and pay. In contrast, the origin of May Day is a pagan holiday celebrating the start of summer, which is what I did as a child each May 1.
In Lerner and Lowe’s Camelot, Guinevere delights the audience with a romp around May poles while gathering flowers and singing, “Tra la, it's May, the lusty Month of May/That lovely month when everyone goes blissfully astray/Tra la, it's here, that shocking time of year/When tons of wicked little thoughts merrily appear.” My mother taught me about May Day, though not a lusty one as I was only grade school age. She showed me how to roll a half sheet of plain bond paper into a cone-shaped basket and fasten it together on the edge with cellophane tape. A long strip was then cut from the other half and stapled to the basket to form a handle. I made one for each house in our neighborhood—the Yeaters, the Strackes, the Beres’s, the Ayars’s and the Elenzes.
I walked over to a little park that we called Fairyland and picked any wild flowers that were already blooming. I recall a tiny purple flower, possibly wild violet, and another that was white and most likely clover. Mom then allowed me to pluck from her side garden as many of the Lilly of the Valley as I needed to fill my little baskets. If the forsythia was still in bloom, or if the lilacs were out, she would help clip a bit of each to add some more color to the arrangements.
With my little paper baskets filled with flowers, I would then stealthily (because it had to be a secret) run over to each door, place the basket over the door handle, ring the bell, and run back home. After delivering all five baskets, I would then watch out the picture window to see what happened when my neighbors opened their doors to find their little May Day surprises.
Wishing you and yours a beautiful May Day!
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2016
In Lerner and Lowe’s Camelot, Guinevere delights the audience with a romp around May poles while gathering flowers and singing, “Tra la, it's May, the lusty Month of May/That lovely month when everyone goes blissfully astray/Tra la, it's here, that shocking time of year/When tons of wicked little thoughts merrily appear.” My mother taught me about May Day, though not a lusty one as I was only grade school age. She showed me how to roll a half sheet of plain bond paper into a cone-shaped basket and fasten it together on the edge with cellophane tape. A long strip was then cut from the other half and stapled to the basket to form a handle. I made one for each house in our neighborhood—the Yeaters, the Strackes, the Beres’s, the Ayars’s and the Elenzes.
I walked over to a little park that we called Fairyland and picked any wild flowers that were already blooming. I recall a tiny purple flower, possibly wild violet, and another that was white and most likely clover. Mom then allowed me to pluck from her side garden as many of the Lilly of the Valley as I needed to fill my little baskets. If the forsythia was still in bloom, or if the lilacs were out, she would help clip a bit of each to add some more color to the arrangements.
With my little paper baskets filled with flowers, I would then stealthily (because it had to be a secret) run over to each door, place the basket over the door handle, ring the bell, and run back home. After delivering all five baskets, I would then watch out the picture window to see what happened when my neighbors opened their doors to find their little May Day surprises.
Wishing you and yours a beautiful May Day!
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2016
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