May Day, May Day, May Day

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May 1, 2017

MAY DAY Photo by Alexander Podshivalov, 123rf.com

Here it is May Day already and according to who you are, May Day means different things. No surprise – I have my own idea on what May Day means to me.

My favorite May Day is the traditional holiday, the pagan practice of women dancing around the May Pole to celebrate Spring and the springing forth of life. There are many watered down versions of what it all means – in order to fit whatever religious orthodoxy prevails, but I prefer the old pagan idea.

In this version the May Pole is a giant phallus, the source of all new life, and dancing around it is a celebration of manhood. I can just imagine how it got started. Somebody in the village said it’s spring time – the flowers are in bloom, the grass is sprouting up out of the mud – we should celebrate. And the men all said, we should celebrate new life, and what’s the source of all new life? We are.

So everybody in the village, erected a giant pole and tied colorful ribbons to it, and celebrated men and manhood. Yes, I know that after the manly work is done, women have to finish up the chore over the next nine months, but hey, it’s the men that made it all possible.

My second favorite May Day is what pilots or ship captains say when their plane or ship is getting ready to go down. “May Day, May Day, May Day,” they say into the radio. Always three times, so there’s no mistake, even if there is a lot of static. It comes from the French word “m’aider.” It’s a trimmed-down version of the French phrase, “venez m’aider,” which means come over and help me, according to my friends at Wikipedia.

The reason it’s my second favorite May Day, is that when somebody says it into the radio, it means the movie is about to start getting exciting. People are in trouble and now we’re going to see how they get out of it.

My least favorite May Day is the one often ends up involving marches and protests. What can I say? I’m sick of marches and protests. It was started by a bunch of communists, socialists, and anarchists and is also known as International Workers Day. It’s not that I am anti-labor; I definitely am not. I respect work, whether it’s done in an office, a factory, or on a construction site.

Work is something to be celebrated. Marching through the streets complaining about how the world is not fair just seems tiresome. It’s true. The world is not fair. But marching around complaining about it doesn’t do much to change that.

Especially when the alternative is pretty girls dancing around a May pole.

Do you have a dissenting opinion or any opinion at all on the subject? Contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know. Meanwhile, you can always subscribe and get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.

News

April 17, 2024

Minor Character

Sometimes I feel like a minor character in one of those really long James Michener historic novels. I’m one of the guys they check in on a couple of times during the course of the book and one more time when he finally kicks the bucket. In truth, that suits me just fine. I don’t want to be one of the major players – those guys who lie, cheat, sleep around, make a lot of money, kill a lot of people, and then then suffer a tragic death on Christmas Eve. I just want to be me – plugging along, having some fun, loving the same woman for years, and then quietly passing away.

March 25, 2024

Cereal Killer

I have almost given up on cereal. As a younger man, I loved a sugary treat. As an old man, who has to watch his diet, I find myself checking labels on everything. Sugar is the enemy. For instance, Cap’n Crunch – a former favorite of my wife – contains: Corn Flour, Sugar, Oat Flour, Brown Sugar, Palm and/or Coconut Oil, Salt, Reduced Iron, Yellow 5, Niacinamide, Yellow 6, BHT, Thiamin, Mononitrate, Pridoxined Hydrochloride, Rioflavin, and Folic Acid. My choice: plain old Shredded Wheat. Ingredients: wheat and BHT (a harmless preservative). Not a taste treat, but at least I’ll live to tell about it

Highway Memorials

Driving across country nowadays, we notice a growing number of roadside displays – flowers, crosses, and ribbons – marking the sites where people apparently died in traffic accidents. I do understand mourning the passing of somebody you love, but I’m not sure I see the point of putting a display at the place along the road where they died. Even sadder is the fact that flowers wilt and highway trash piles up around the displays, making them just another sad reminder of life cut short.

December 5, 2023

Love Motives

I often tell my wife I love and adore her, mainly because I do and also because women like to hear the man in their life actually say the words. But during one conversation I had to confess that some times when I say it – especially when she is irked and giving me the deadly silent treatment – I am also reminding myself of that fact so I don’t start yelling and slamming doors. Is that so wrong?

Being Mortal

I am officially an old man. Sometimes I forget, then I look in the mirror and there it is. The truth is that life has its limits, and that is how it should be. There are new generations coming up, ready to step up and take our place. They are welcome to it. If you have reached old age, you have made some blunders in you life. If you think otherwise, then you are indeed a fool. You can warn the new generations about the mistakes you made, but they are oblivious. This too is as it should be. It’s their world, and it’s on them to screw it up for the generations to follow, just as we did for them.

Good Deeds

There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It’s mostly – but not always – true. The problem with good deeds is that most people who do them expect to be appreciated. In actuality, good-deed recipients are more often resentful about it, rather than grateful. Nobody likes being the person who has to rely on the good will of others. So do good deeds for your own sake – because it makes you feel better, not because you want to be feel appreciated.

Recreational Bitching

Did you ever notice that some people – maybe more people than not – like to complain about everything? In the summertime, it’s too hot. In the wintertime it’s too cold. Health care is too expensive. Young people are too rude. Old people move too slowly. There ought to be a law against anything and everything that might make one unhappy. It’s recreational bitching, and we all do it to greater or lesser extent. Maybe once in a while, it might make sense to listen to how we talk and how we think. Most of us are just doing the best that we can.