Summer’s finally here. Yes Summer, not Spring. May in the old Celtic tradition marks the beginning of summer and summer solstice is midsummer. You can get the whole explanation here. Remember the maypole with the dancing and ribbons – comes from this day. In Scotland, they still hold bonfires to celebrate. It’s when faeries come out to play, everything turns green, flowers come back and generally everyone gets happy again. I think we should bring back celebrating that. Holidays with fire, costumes and fun are more enduring.
Instead, the Bush government had to try to ruin yet another perfectly good day. May 1’s become International Worker’s Day for “pinkos” and “commies,” so Bushy signed some bill making it “Loyalty Day”. They couldn’t let it go. I seriously don’t see it becoming anything special. Flag Day has become a non-day. Next year maybe they’ll have mass pledge of allegance rallies leading up to the election. But it’ll get smaller and smaller each time and then our children will ask, what the big was all about.
Happy May Day!
Great post – it’s almost summer in Norway too. Come on over and see how we celebrate May Day:-)
It was Law Day too. Apparently, Dubya has absolutely no sense of irony.
May Day actually has a long history in the labor movement. It’s an interesting one, too. So is the history of Loyalty Day. I linked to a post we did on it. I hope you enjoy.