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Mr. B. picked some daisies by the side of the road for me today...
they brought back still more childhood memories...
Did you sing that song, ..."Daisy, daisy, give me your answer, do..."
when you were little? I did...a lot, if memory serves...it was only one of my wide repertoire, sung loudly (and off-key, I'm sure ~ I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket) while swinging on the little wooden-seated swing that hung under my Grandma and Grandpa's carport...
I got to thinking about that little song...what was it called? ("A Bicycle Built for Two" was what I thought...) ~ Here is what I found on Wikipedia...
When Dacre, an English popular composer, first came to the United States, he brought with him a bicycle, for which he was charged duty. His friend (songwriter William Jerome) remarked lightly: 'It's lucky you didn't bring a bicycle built for two, otherwise you'd have to pay double duty.' Dacre was so taken with the phrase 'bicycle built for two' that he decided to use it in a song. That song, Daisy Bell, first became successful in a London music hall, in a performance by Katie Lawrence. Tony Pastor was the first one to sing it in the United States. Its success in America began when Jennie Lindsay brought down the house with it at the Atlantic Gardens on the Bowery early in 1892.
So..."Daisy Bell" it is....you learn something new every day (it doesn't have to be useful)!
Daisies grew in the alley behind my Grandma and Grandpa Collier's house, too...they didn't last long, however, as my little girlfriends and I used them as fortune-tellers practically as soon as they unfurled their little petals...
"He loves me, he loves me not"...
Except we didn't really care about the "love" fortune-telling part...
We used them to foretell more important things...
"Will I get a bicycle for my birthday?"
"Will I ever get a pony??"
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A Maypole Dance in Central Park, 1905
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A Victorian trade card for Childs' Golden Japanese May Berry
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A sweet little vintage May Day postcard...
A maypole is a tall wooden pole erected as a part of various European folk festivals, particularly on May Day, or Pentecost (Whitsun) although in some countries it is instead erected at Midsummer. In some cases the maypole is a permanent feature that is only utilised during the festival, although in other cases it is erected specifically for the purpose before being taken down again.
Primarily found within the nations of Germanic Europe and the neighbouring areas which they have influenced, its origins remain unknown, although it has been speculated that it originally had some importance in the Germanic paganism of Iron Age and early Medieval cultures, and that the tradition survived Christianisation, albeit losing any original meaning that it had. It has been a recorded practice in many parts of Europe throughout the Medieval and Early Modern periods, although became less popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, the tradition is still observed in some parts of Europe and amongst European communities in North America.
For the Ribbon Dance, dancers gather in a circle, each holding a colored ribbon attached to a much smaller pole. As the dance commences the ribbons are intertwined and plaited either on to the pole itself or into a web around the pole. The dancers may then retrace their steps exactly in order to unravel the ribbons. This style of maypole dancing originates in the 18th century, and is derived from traditional and 'art' dance forms popular in Italy and France. These were exported to the London stage and reached a large audience, becoming part of the popular performance repertoire. Adopted at a large teacher training institution, the ribbon maypole dance then spread across much of England, and is now regarded as the most 'traditional' of May Day's traditional characteristics.
The earliest use of the Maypole in America occurred in 1628 in New Plymouth, where a number of servants broke free from their indentured service to create their own colony, setting up a maypole in the center of the settlement, and behaving in such a way as to receive the scorn and disapproval of the nearby colonies.
There you have it...May Day and daisy trivia...you never know when it will come in handy! :^)
I hope everyone said "Rabbit, rabbit"!
Happy Wednesday, all.
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Anne
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