Not my H&C

Not my H & C

Cinco de Mayo, like Kwanzaa, a cultural festival that means something to somebody but nothing to me. Not to derogate it, it’s just that I never heard of it, it’s not part of my heritage and culture. Neither is Guy Fawkes Day, Boxing Day, Bastille Day, ...

May Day was in my memory, but as a kid I thought it was ridiculous, a tall pole in the middle of the basketball court, with many colored ribbons hanging down from the top of the pole, and us children skipping round and round the pole, weaving in and out while holding a ribbon, the ribbons plaiting downward for a multicolored pole. It was a spring festival of some sort, in the early 1940s we did it at Cove School, and I always dreaded it. It was absurd to a grimy boy. Seemed to have disappeared as May Day came to be the day for enormous military parades of tanks and missiles and troops marching in front of the Kremlin and in Peking; and I was just as glad to be shed of it.  

What is part of my H&C is Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. Mainly the Fourth of July a hot summer day with picnics and parades and bands and fireworks and the grand finale. Our parade down Harrison Avenue always ended with a couple of old touring cars, top down, riding ancient Confederate and Yankee veterans in uniform looking at the crowd. Years later, sitting in my old Ford pickup watching the fireworks with Nicholas, in Apalachicola.

Oh and Washington’s Birthday, when we cut out profiles of George Washington and glued them on paper, and cherry trees, and hatchets. We cut out Abraham Lincoln profiles on Lincoln’s Birthday too, and they were two separate celebrations, not squeezed together to make another day for somebody else. And we made elegant valentines on Valentine’s Day, and handed out Valentines in class. All of which made February, an otherwise gray month, a great and happy month to look forward to. A major part of my culture and heritage growing up. 

And Pearl Harbor Day, December 7th:

Let's remember Pearl Harbor
As we go to meet the foe
Let's remember Pearl Harbor
As we did the Alamo.

We will always remember
how they died for Liberty
Let's remember Pearl Harbor
And go on to victory.

Let's remember Pearl Harbor

As we go to meet the foe
Let's remember Pearl Harbor
As we did the Alamo.

We will always remember
How they died for Liberty
Let's remember Pearl Harbor
And go on to victory.

As it turns out, “always” is not very long in human memory. There was the tale a few years ago, of a classroom in Japan when the teacher mentioned the war with America and a surprised student exclaimed “We had a war with the United States? When? Who won?”

Maurice and me again: I remember it well. We knew how to win a war in that day and age, and I remember that too. 

But Cinco de Mayo -- ?? -- I can look it up on Wikipedia. But I’m not going to.

W 
May 5, 2015