Another Day in the Country
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
"I almost didn't do it this year," Jeannie said when my sister thanked her for instigating another May Day surprise for everyone in Ramona. "I've been so busy," she sighed. "But then I saw some of the kids and I said, 'Let's meet in the park and we'll make baskets — I'll bring flowers.' and it took off."
Sure enough, on May Day in Ramona kids were scurrying around, ringing doorbells, then running for dear life so as not to be caught.
"Did you figure out who brought you flowers?" Tooltime Tim wanted to know. "I was working across the street — it was Molly."
The next day, an e-mail came across my desk. It was my favorite kind of e-mail with a story from the past. Ranny Grady sent a Ramona memory from 1945 when his family moved into town and discovered that Ramona celebrated May Day in a really big way. According to Ranny we had a May Day Queen, with all the pretty girls in town vying for the title, and a traditional Maypole with streamers.
Ranny was five years old at the time and he was fascinated by the teenagers who danced around the pole — boys flirting with the girls. Too young for that mushy stuff, he had to content himself with helping make May baskets to hand around the neighborhood.
"Ours were made from paper and we colored them with crayons and paints and then put homemade goodies inside with a few spring flowers poking out the top. We children would sneak up on the peoples' porch, sit the basket down, knock loudly on the door, listen intently for footsteps and then run so as not to be seen. Once in a while we were able to leave the basket, hide nearby, and watch the reaction of our neighbors' face," remembered Ranny. Evidently, the more surprised folks were, the higher the satisfaction.
I asked my cousin Georgia if she remembered the May Day fun in Ramona — she's a little later vintage than Ranny. Evidently by the time she was in school, 1949, the May Queen and the Maypole had gone by the wayside. "We made cone-shaped baskets out of construction paper," she recalled, "and took them to people we especially liked — I remember taking them to Grandma Schubert."
My mother always collected old wallpaper books and when I was a child we made May baskets out of wallpaper — a very satisfying paper to work with because it was heavy and already had designs on it. I remember having to really scrounge to find enough flowers to fill those baskets, settling for dandelions as filler.
Ranny Grady had trouble finding enough flowers, too, and he confessed that he snitched flowers from Elsie Schmidt's garden next door. When his mother discovered he'd stolen flowers for May baskets, she marched him over to Elsie and made him apologize. "Later that night I heard my parents talking and Mama told Pop that Elsie was not so upset about the flowers but the fact that none of the children had even brought her a basket."
This year in Ramona, everyone got a basket. Thanks to the weather, the lilacs were in bloom for May Day and tulips were marching down my sidewalk flower beds with their heads held high. Miniature daffodils, grape hyacinth, and bluebells still were blooming at the Ramona House. In our yards, kids could have had a heyday picking flowers and like Mrs. Schmidt of old I probably would have wanted to skin 'um alive. Jeannie saved the day and saved the kids from temptation. She brought bedding plants, ready for planting, and put a plant in each May basket.
It's another day in the country and thanks to folks in the community like Jeannie Goza, the May Day tradition lives on in Ramona.
