May Day

Monday I did not think of how the communist world and the Stater response would turn the first day of May into a distress signal ("May Day, May Day") of macho military preening, the militarist as dangerous as the religionist, especially if "super" is stomped at the front of either word. I didn't think of all that until I later saw the newsphotos to remind me, for what I was thinking of was another innocent childhood charm gone missing. Old people tend to do that to bore the young trying to ignore them with their Ipods and video games and other distracting hyper urban noise.
I can't remember dancing around a May pole except once or twice at school. May Day to us was May baskets. May baskets weren't baskets either except in requiring containers with handles, usually constructed of nutcups adorned with crepe paper, ribbbon, construction paper cut-outs, lacy paper doilies, tissue paper, even lilac sprigs, with some kind of handles, fuzzy pipecleaners, satin ribbons, colored cords, construction-paper strips. These May tokens were filled with salted peanuts, pastel mints, jelly beans, gumdrops, homemade fudge, Necco wafers, candy corn, and the like in very small amounts, given the tiny size of the baskets, not like today's, say, Easter candy binges. I'm going to guess the custom dates way back to ancient English spring (fertility) celebrations, though certainly we knew none of that, simply growing up with a tradition nearing its end. This was what you prepared for and what you did. The practice was to try to sneak a small basket up to someone's door despite a barking dog or a window watcher, hang the little basket of favors on the doorknob or set it in front of the door, knock, and then race off before the recipient could rush out, chase you down, and kiss you. If you got kissed, you lost. Good exercise. And genderless. Consider it lip tag with footraces. The winner was the fastest, period.
Strategy entered into it because May 1 usually is a weekday, meaning we had a small window between school and early evening. (Town mothers policed all our activities and agreed remarkably on start-ups and shut-downs.) If I went to the other end of town, that meant those there could hit my house while I was gone, and so we stalemated. After the production-line filling and lining up the May baskets in a cut-down cardboard box, I'd be driven around by Mom to the farther parts--two or three blocks away, that is--and had only to get back to the car and slam the door to be home ollie-oxen free. In my part of town, I had to make it all the way back to my house.
I hope I'm not dating myself by mentioning items like nutcups, little crimped paper cups, or crepe paper, cheap in its huge assortment of colors from bright dyes that ran and stained skin or anything else if wet, crepe paper the main decorative device then, easily cut but hard to tear because it stretched, ideal for twisted streamers and fake flowers. The town bridge club and periodic banquet organizers used nutcups regularly. Dime stores back then carried May baskets, but most of us created our own with nutcups and crepe paper, mindful of reputation depending on how fancy or full these little trophies were. (Someone made unwieldy construction-paper cones once, which spilled and broke. The easiest, no prizes, were cellophane-wrapped popcorn balls or colored cellophane squares tied with a bit of curling ribbon.) The preparation was just as important as the delivery, like making Easter eggs, so we spent creative time stapling and pasting to turn those plain little nutcups into Cinderella favors with pink crimped crepe paper or yellow bows or colored stars like the gold ones we got at school. The wealthier mothers might use fabrics, the poorer mothers construction paper, the middle mothers crepe paper.
I don't know how the politically correct would alter small-town mores, but I do know there was a caste system, even with May baskets. What I don't know is how recipients were chosen or why some adults were included. Mom was an elementary teacher at times, so I think I had every child in town roughly my age on my list--we did have lists--including separate baskets--oh, pain, to do it twice--for brothers (the McGill boys) or sisters (the Brockman girls). What I can't explain is how Mrs. Sandoz, the little white-haired lady across the street, and Mary Ellingson, who ran the town cafe, got on my list, but they were, much to my distress, for Mrs. Sandoz scampered like a rabbit and Mary was persistent in chasing me around and around my dad's gas pumps until both caught and kissed me, hugely embarrassing. They were "old ladies," after all. I also can't explain what fatal age ended participation, though older children clearly weren't involved, nor can I remember when it all disappeared. Unlike Halloween, when farm children came in to trick or treat, this was strictly a townie tradition. Not easy to sneak up on a farmhouse.
And that's what I was happily thinking of last Monday. May baskets.