May Day

by Donna Schoenkopf

May Day.  It's a wonderful day.

First of all, it's in May, which just may be the prettiest month of the year.  If you live where there are seasons, May is the month that is the embodiment of Spring.  May fills the senses with color and fragrance and song.  You can taste the sweet breezes and feel them soft on your skin.

Ah, May.

And it has May Day. 

If you're Catholic, May Day is Mary's Day.  A statue, usually almost life size, is taken from the church and is brought to a place outside where it is adorned with a crown of flowers and flowers flowing down her robe.  She is put on a litter and carried lovingly into the church and placed in her niche, while the parishioners sing sweet songs about and to her.

Then there's the European May Day.  A tall May Pole has long colored wide ribbons or strips of cloth attached to its top and beautiful young girls, each holding one of those ribbons, dances around the May Pole, intertwining the ribbons in and out, in and out, until the colors form a braided pattern around the Pole.

And there is the May Day of my mother's youth.  Children decorated small May baskets filled with flowers and sneaked up to the front doors of their neighbors, hung the May basket on the door knob, knocked, and ran away before the door was opened.

In Hawaiian schools a girl who must be at least part Hawaiian, is chosen as the May Queen and she reigns over the festivities which include that old Hawaiian favorite, "May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii".  She wears a holoku, a long, lovely Hawaiian gown with a train.  She sits on a throne and wears a crown of flowers and an exquisite lei.

And around the world May Day is the most wonderful celebration of The Worker.  It's International Labor Day.  In Communist countries huge marches and parades and dances powerfully illustrate the importance of Labor.  Labor gave us the weekend, and the 40 hour week, and overtime, and safe working conditions, and fought for health care for workers, and got respect for the working man and woman.

Labor creates all wealth.  It's what gives us self-respect, pride in creating, a reason to be.  We are what we do.

So to one and all, here and everywhere, Happy May Day!

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