May Day

When I was in 4th grade I remember we had a huge May Day celebration. There were three fourth grade classrooms so we must have all combined to have as many people as I remember. All the girls wore white blouses and full skirts and we made triangular neck scarves to wear. The boys wore slacks and white shirts and also had neck scarves. I remember the folk dancing, the singing, and the dance around the May pole which I thought was so exciting. We had made streamers out of many different colors of crepe paper and I thought the finished May Pole was so beautiful. We had also made little nosegays for our moms which I remember leaving on the doorstep, ringing the doorbell and running away. I also remember picking flowers for neighborhood moms and leaving them on their doorsteps, usually their own flowers.

If we were taught a reason for this celebration other than spring time I certainly don't remember, and growing up in the vast suburbs of San Diego we didn't have any ethnic heritage in common. We weren't celebrating the labor movement nor were we celebrating a pagan holiday. However, I do remember within the next couple years we were told that celebrating May Day was 'inappropriate' and the school would no longer have a party.



My childhood May Day of flowers and rebirth collided with the May Day of the Cold War, of Russian tanks rolling past Russian dictators, and the paranoia of McCarthy, Nixon, and the Red Menace and it died aborning.