May First

Nobody has memories of walking with RED flags and singing About the workers of the whole world that should Unite ? I grew up on stories of the First INTERNATIONAL ,,, mirjam

Nobody has memories of walking with RED flags and singing About the workers of the whole world that should Unite ? I grew up on stories of the First INTERNATIONAL ,,, mirjam

Not me, Mirjam. My only memory of May 1 is that it is May Day. :-)

lisa

Karlisa wrote: My only memory of May 1 is that it is May Day. :-)

Me too. In elementary school (in an English village) we elected a May King and a May Queen, made daisy chains and danced around the Maypole. The headmistress was my aunt, and very big on maintaining the old traditions wherever possible.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans

In the US, in the Cold War, all that was seen as "Communistic" and anathema. May 1 is officially Law Day. It is pretty much ignored by everyone. Like the others, I have memories of making paper May Baskets (in the Girl Scouts) and hanging them on people's doors.

(Of course, from college, I also have memories of a rather scurrilous May 1 ditty....)

Georgia

Nobody has memories of walking with RED flags and singing About the workers of the whole world that should Unite ? I grew up on stories of the First INTERNATIONAL ,,, mirjam

I remember singing the INTERNATIONAL and waving red flags ,,,, Heard about MayDay only as a an SOS call one does on Radios when a ship is in danger .... mirjam

mirjam

Sorry i tottaly forgot about `that cold war` and the Anti Communist feelings, But many of our parents were part of Socialist [ not communist ] moovements , and at the time they hoped this moovements will change the lot of the poor people in the world ,,,, mirjam

That was a misspelling of the French distress call, "m'aidez", because the English misheard it as the more familiar word, Mayday.

There used to be a small tradition of "May baskets" - little baskets of flowers that were left on people's doorsteps - but I only read about it. Nowadays there are more Maypoles in the USA than ever before, I think. It's a comparatively harmless and pleasant spring activity, so people like to do it at fairs.

=Tamar

I certainly do! Back in Ukraine (sorry, USSR actually) as children we really enjoyed this day. First of all it was HOLIDAY: everybody was off work, off school. Of course parents had their own feelings about being made to come to demonstration, carry flags,pictures and silly slogans. And still I have a lot of pictures of smiling relatives; walking, talking,making jokes and laughing. It was even more fun when my father took me with him. It was great just to be with adults on holiday. And I absolutely LOVED balloons! At that time balloons were seldom in the stores in the USSR without holiday coming (November 7th, May 1st, etc.) Later in high school and University the mood toward all of this changed of course. And still, we had great times just getting together, trying to sneak from the crowd and run away through backyards avoiding police (militia) blocks and just have pick nick somewhere in the park. Oh, memories of childhood!..

It was compulsory???

We celebrated May Day as a fertility rite. Worked for me :-) We don't celebrate it in this house any more, our family has been too fertile :-(

But to go a-maying, picking flowers and having a May Queen, as was done in England for centuries, was a joy. It was spoiled when the politicians took it over, as most things are.

Mary

YW , thank you for thios elaborate story , i have many stories like yours and it brough memories of the Lovely people who used to tell me this stories ... thank you . mirjam

Politicians haven`t TAKEN IT OVER ,,,, The social international WORKERS OF THE WHOLE WORLD Took it as their Symbolic DAY ,,,, mirjam

On my memory it was compulsory. I was born in 60-ties. Every reasonably sized city had to show political activity. The city I grew up is the second biggest in Ukraine. Yulia

Hi Mirjam,

I'm sure you have plenty of stories to share! I lived in Haifa between

Yulia

...

That's a shame. Is it still compulsory in Ukraine?

Mary

YULIA !!!! what a nice surprise !!! I live in Neve Sha`naan Near The technion. In the 50-80 Haifa had wonderful marches both on May first and in Indepence day {Today we have our 60th]. We had dancing groups and people with flags and bannners, In those times it was , an accetable way of life and we didn`t think it odd ,, times have changed and we think differently, Like you i do remember all kinds of Nice private things my friends and me did `around` those marches. Please feel free to email me privately , look at my site etc,, I wish i knew you when you lived here. mirjam