MAY DAY

Memories of my childhood and things recurred.

 

MAY DAY

 

I was born in a small Alpine style village named Leavenworth, a town high in the mountains above Seattle Washington.

 

As a small child May first was a day us children loved!  There was a Russian holiday on May 1^st. known as May Day. It was celebrated as Liberation Day from the czar at that time.   When I was a child it was a very special day for the children and I am not Russian.  But it was the one day in the year where children would pretend to dance around the May Pole and do something very special for our favorite neighbors.  We made little paper baskets and filled them with flowers/Lilacs and would place them at their door steps.  Then we rang their doorbells if we could reach them, or knocked on their doors and would run and hide until they came and saw our little gifts. We always thought that they didn’t know where the flower baskets came from as we slipped away but they probably did.  This was just one sweet memory of my childhood.

 

Now, May first has many meanings.  The Russians now celebrate it but call it a National Laborers Day, with demonstrations, sometimes violent.  Hitler was captured on May 1^st and now finally Usama bin Laden was killed on this very same date.  History has been written about many things but let us connect the dots.  Can we rest easier?  Usama had so many in training throughout the world.  I believe May first should be designated a World Day of Prayer for Peace.  How about you?

 

Reviews

[Christina May Shanaberg]

May Day in Columbus OH, fifty years ago, included a dance around our school's flagpole with ribbons; they called it a Maypole. Afterwards, when prayer was still allowed in the schools, we bowed our heads and prayed for world peace. The best thing that ever happened for me personally on May 1 was my final divorce from my lying, cheating, lazy husband James Arthur Paul Shanaberg in 1992. I was too young to remember what the Maypole was all about, but hope that someone remembers that, too.

Loved the poem and the information that I didn't know about the day!

Oh, I just remembered, I won my first poetry contest at age 8 on May Day.

May

May;
It's the day
For happy play;
Drop some glass,
After a bee;
Mow the grass;
That's for me!

May Day is special to me, because it is my middle name; named after my grandmother, a complusive writer, Lillian Mae Miller. She preserved our family heritage with her words. My grandfather, also, had a step father whose last name was May. Not to be vain, my oldest daughter was named Charisma, after myself Christina May (Chris May=Ch a risMa y.) My only sibling, my brother Walter, was born in May. May has been very important in my life.

[WordShifter]

This is good with so much information that I never knew. Thank you for sharing.
"May Day is Lei Day in Hawai'i" -- it's a song and a custom and a festival. In Hawai'i on the first of May, everyone wears flowers, schools stage pageants and give prizes, contests are held for the most beautiful lei or garland, a Queen is crowned, competitions in both ancient and modern hula are held and popular entertainers give a concert or show for the locals.

[Donna Lorenz]

i WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU, EVEN AN ECHO FROM THE MOUNTAINS AROUND LEAVENWORTH!