Today is the first day of May. I am not sure if it means anything to anyone now days but in the past it did, at least it did to the kids. In the olden days, when I was a little children back in Missouri, it was well known that all kids could start going bare foot the first day of May. Most years spring had sprung by May first and it was warm enough to go bare foot.
We lived on Pine Street and it was a gravel street. I remember one of the Ratliff boys (I believe it was Dale) telling me, If you are tough you can run on gravel bare foot. He then took off running, I did not. In all fairness these old gravel streets had ruts where the gravel was packed down into the dirt, so running or walking in it bare foot wasn’t too bad.
At May Green school they had a day known as May Day. Each grade of kids got to do something as the others watched. My favorite was the kids that got to do the May Pole dance. There was this pole that seemed very tall to kids but it was in fact only about 8 foot high. They had pieces of red and white ribbon attached to the top of the pole. The kids (possibly 4th graders) would each take a ribbon with every other one taking red ribbon, and the others white. There was music played and half of the kids went in one direction while the other half went the opposite way. The kids with the white ribbons went under those with red, then the kids with red went under those with white which basically wove the ribbons as they came down the pole.
Above you see a maypole with several colored ribbons. Would you believe, the old photo is of me when I was a kid? Neither would I, it came from the internet.
Oneth and first mean the same thing!
Don Ford
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