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| May Day Basket
It's May Day! What do the photos above trigger in your memory bank? When I turned the page on my calendars today, I remembered what fun my children had making May baskets, filling with flowers and/or candies and delivering to the neighbors. The idea, of course, was to tippy-toe to the door, attach the basket, cone, or whatever container they had, ring the doorbell and run away. The giver's identity was to be kept a secret.
When I was teaching 3rd and 4th graders, I had the children make a paper cone as a May Basket. They loved putting something on their cone that made it different from the others. Creativity came into use here. I always hoped they would get the flowers from their own gardens, not snitch some on the way home from school! I did provide candies for them to add to the May Day gift.
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| A Traditional May Pole |
We didn't have a May Pole when I was a child but something close to it. Our playground had High Flyers which was a tall, straight pole in the middle with several chained pieces hanging from it. There were wooden bars toward the bottom, two on each one, and this is what kids held onto as they ran round and round making the chained pieces move out enough so their feet would leave the ground as they spun around the pole. I do remember one year that someone had decorated the High Flyer with ribbons for May Day.
When our children were growing up, I would greet them on May 1st with "Happy May Day" and their dad, who had a law degree, always countered with "Happy Law Day." Personally, I like May Day much better and I am pretty sure our kids did, too.
May offers opportunities to write memories for your Family Stories book. We celebrate May Day, Mother's Day, and Memorial Day this month. Ponder on the memories of each of these special days. Inspiration to write often results from these musings about days of long ago.
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The High Flyer at Waco Elementary School at 21st and Waco was on the Southeast side of the huge building. We had to be careful when we ran as fast as we could and leaped into the air to spin around on the chain as well as around the pole at the same time. If you got dizzy; let go and fell down, you landed in sand burs throughout the sandy playground. My older brother always liked playing basketball on the North side of Waco School on the sandy court, but also complained that his basketball picked up stickers when you dribbled on the sand and they ended hip in his hands. We had no idea what it was like to play on a smooth, polished wooden floor like the kids do today, but we had just as much fun. Don Marler
ReplyDeleteThanks Don. I wondered if anyone else would remember the High Flyers. Schools today would probably not allow them, thinking they are 'too dangerous.'
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