So, who is dancing around the May Pole today?

[MineralMan]

Why don't we do that any more? It's a fine pagan sort of thing to do.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

1. Meh, I think I'll skip that and go straight to the afternoon's activities.

[IronLionZion]

2. It's a great day for pagans and communists

I don't have a link handy but there's a great song by Jonathan Coulton called First of May that describes a great activity that starts today.

[MineralMan]

4. And there used to be May Baskets of flowers for children to leave

at neighbors' doors. I actually remember doing that when I was about 4 years old.

[Siwsan]

5. I remember picking flowers, putting them on the porch, ringing the doorbell and hiding

Then I'd wait for my mom to open the door so I could pop out and wish her a Happy May Day.

[marble falls]

6. And thats just Congress!

[IronLionZion]

9. Jonathan Coulton in LA -03-First Of May

NSFW

[Cartoonist]

3. When I was a kid

Back in the 60s, there was a May pole in the town park. It was a relic of the past even then.

[NightWatcher]

7. No sex threads!

[Cartoonist]

8. Article of interest

http://www.marinij.com/lifestyle/20180430/marin-history-may-day-festivities



For thousands of years, people have celebrated May Day as a springtime festival by giving and wearing flowers, gathering for music, feasting and dancing (sometimes around a maypole), and commemorating the sowing of seeds and the planting of crops. The young students of San Rafael's West End School dressed as dream fairies and daisies for their observance of the festivities on May 1, 1931.

May is named for the goddess Maia, a Greek and Roman goddess of fertility. The earliest recorded May Day celebrations were in honor of Flora, the Roman Goddess of youth, spring and flowers. The traditional dancing around a maypole and crowning of a "May Queen" evolved in early, medieval Germany and Britain, and were staples of celebrations in the United States until the 1950s. At that time, the fear and hysteria of communism and socialism eclipsed the historical meaning behind the festival as worldwide labor organizations and countries such as Russia and China had adopted May 1 as International Worker's Day. In a bizarre twist of irony, the U.S. government responded by designating the first of May as "Loyalty Day" and subsequently "Law Day." Traditional May Day celebrations were discontinued in American schools and towns as few felt the desire to commemorate "Law Day." There has been a resurgence of traditional May Day celebrations within the last few decades, and maybe we will see more daisies and dream fairies in the coming years.