May Day
A few years ago, May Day, "the merriest day of the year" was proclaimed a Bank Holiday in England. Today not many who live on that small island celebrate the first day in May the way I remember.
This date, on a beautiful sunny, spring day in Montana jogged my lazy mind to days of long ago when I flipped over a page of the calendar from April to May, to note that I fertilized the flower beds. "Ah! May Day," I whispered.
May Day in the days of my youth were one that school children looked forward to with delight, as festivity plans were made ahead. The two-story red brick school I attended, designed in a square figure eight was not far from my home in Sutton. Surrey was a quiet town located 20 miles south of London's hustle and bustle and considered to be "out in the county."
All schools in the 1930s were divided into boy's section with male teachers and girl's section with female teachers. In retrospect, a case of "Ne'er the twain shall meet." In April, during our daily physical education period, we practiced English county dancing in groups of six and eight girls. Groups from local schools were chosen by their teachers to perform on a village green in the afternoon of May Day, with mostly mothers and teachers in attendance.
Those not dancing had their turn of performing the Maypole dance. Each girl held a colored ribbon and in pairs, faced each other. In a large circle they skipped in and out to weave the ribbons around the pole, turned and skipped to unwind the ribbons for the next group of girls to weave and unweave the ribbons.
We wore white knee-length dresses, white socks and white plimsolls (rubber-soled canvas shoes). Daisies are abundant in early spring and before the dancing started most of the girls picked them to make daisy chains to wear as crowns.
To end the afternoon, refreshments were served. Fish paste, salmon and cucumber, and Marmite sandwiches made with two slices of very thin bread cut into quarters, sponge cake and lemonade were the usual fare served after the performances. Teachers stood by to supervise the students' Tea Time manners of taking small amounts of food.
May Day festivities are probably still alive in rural England, though for most, a Bank Holiday is a day to do as one pleases.
On this side of the Atlantic, in western Montana's Bitterroot Valley, I was introduced to a very sweet May Day custom.
One morning I heard loud, urgent knocking on the front door of our house in Hamilton. I rushed through the house to the door, thinking that one of our neighbors had trouble and needed help. I opened the door. No neighbor. I started to step outside and nearly stepped on two bright, construction paper baskets filled with wild flowers: shooting stars, yellow bells and violets set in damp moss. A May Day gift from young children who lived in the neighborhood. They were nowhere in sight. The custom is to leave the flower baskets and disappear. I could have cried with joy over their sweet gift.
I remedied the absence of a flower basket on my doorstep this May Day by gathering one lone, rust colored tulip, a lone white windflower and a lone vanilla cream jonquil. They were all that remained of my spring flowers after one of the deer's many moonlight raids.
In a small glass container on our kitchen counter I enjoy the arrangement and remember the past of pleasant May Days.