May Day of Long Ago
When I was
in grammar school all those many years ago, we always had a May Day
celebration.
My memory
may be sketchy on this, but we word costumes on that special day and had a big
parade.
I don’t
recall exactly how the choice of costumes was decided, but I do know it was
different each year.
One year,
during WWII, my class dressed in patriotic costumes, as nurses and in different
military uniform.
In 6th
grade, we dressed in Spanish costumes as we were studying Spain at the time and
learning some Spanish. I know we learned the song La Cucracha with the famous
line of not having any marijuana to smoke. I doubt any of knew what marijuana was in those days.
A princess
was chosen from the Kindergarten class—and I even remember the little girl’s
name who was chosen, Felicia Glass.
All of our
parents were invited to the May Day festivities and each class had the opportunity
to dance around the May Pole.
The
school, Delevan Drive, was unique in that it had seat carved into the side of
the hill for the audience to sit upon as they looked won on the playground
where we performed. Many tall eucalyptus trees framed the area.
The two-story
brick building where we learned looked like George Washington’s abode—beautiful,
but not earthquake safe. A new school now stands in the former place.
One thing is still the same--the school has a garden, we called ours a Victory Garden--and it's been modernized a bit. I'm glad the school kids still have the opportunity to work in the garden. Mr. Nelson was our gardening teacher. For an L.A. school, check out all the great old trees.
I have lots of good memories of my grammar school days. I was Marilyn Mitchell back then.
Marilyn aka F.M. Meredith
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