HAPPY MAY DAY

When I was a kid, May Day still had some of the pagan aspects about it, with maypoles and people leaving baskets of flowers on neighbors stoops etc. But thanks to our local Catholic church, Our Lady of Sorrows, built mostly by Irish immigrants like my father's parents, May Day was becoming a religious day (with processions from church to a local park, girls in white dresses scattering roses as men carried a statue of The Blessed Virgin, i.e. Saint Mary, Mother of Jesus to a nearby park where priests and politicians would rant about how Soviet Russia was on it's way to our shores etc.) to compete with the COMMUNISTS (!!!!!OH NO!!!!!) and their using it as a day to celebrate workers.

Little did I know back then that using May Day to celebrate working people was a USA invention during the struggle to limit the work day to eight hours, back when the work day was back breaking for most. The photo above was taken outside the Quonset hut I lived in with my first wife Lee and our daughter Caitlin, about the time (1968) I learned the true meaning of modern May Day.

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS!

That was the cry then, still sounds right to me...