Wither the Maypole?

May Day 2025

My Regular Pagan Holiday Post

Wide Hollow Elementary School in Yakima, Washington, was already an old building when I began attending in the 1950s. At the time, it served students from first through eighth grades. The little kids were on the first floor, the big kids upstairs. I remember the worn wooden steps leading to the second floor, scalloped by generations of student feet.

Our classrooms held old-fashioned desks—wooden with ornate cast-iron legs—each one with a small hole in the top for an ink bottle. We were taught how to fill our fountain pens by dipping the nib into the ink and lifting a lever to draw it in. (This cannot have happened without spills—the poor teachers!)

Every room had a long wall of blackboard, with erasers that students cleaned by smacking them together, creating great clouds of chalk dust. The tall windows were opened using a long pole. Above the blackboards, neat rows of Palmer Method cursive letters reminded us of the proper way to form our handwriting.

The school was heated by a coal furnace. A coal chute led to the basement, where the coal man would periodically unload his delivery.

Outside, the playground seemed enormous. A towering maple tree stood right outside the building. We had swings, a slide, and a ride called the “ocean wave”—a notoriously dangerous contraption rumored to have killed children in other schools. As far as I know, ours survived it, though I did rip my good dress riding it on the very first day of first grade.

At recess, we played Ring Around the Rosie, Red Rover, jump rope, tetherball, and a game where we bounced a ball against the wall chanting, “Not last night but the night before, 24 robbers came knocking at my door.”

Much has changed. The old building was torn down years ago and replaced. The curriculum has become more inclusive. I still remember being twelve and furious that our new history books made no mention of the Indigenous peoples of the area. Today, Wide Hollow proudly displays a land acknowledgment on its website:

 “We would like to acknowledge that we’re coming to you from the traditional lands of the first people of our valley, the 14 Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, and we honor with gratitude the land itself and the Yakama Tribe.”

Wide Hollow is now a K–5 school. They host a “multicultural celebration,” but I don’t believe the ancient pagan Spring holiday of May Day is among those still observed. Back in our day, we celebrated May Day by weaving ribbons around a maypole (perhaps the tetherball pole?) and making May baskets, often filled like Easter baskets with flowers.

While May Day celebrations have largely fallen out of fashion in the U.S., they still take place in some towns. In Europe, the tradition persists more strongly. In modern pagan communities, May Day has been revived and reimagined through the Celtic festival of Beltane.

In Sweden, maypole dancing has shifted to the big Summer Solstice festivals, but until the 19th century, May Day was celebrated with mock battles between Summer and Winter. I love this account by Sir James George Frazer in The Golden Bough (1911):

“On May Day two troops of young men on horseback used to meet as if for mortal combat. One of them was led by a representative of Winter clad in furs, who threw snowballs and ice in order to prolong the cold weather. The other troop was commanded by a representative of Summer, covered with fresh leaves and flowers. In the sham fight which followed, the party of Summer came off victorious, and the ceremony ended with a feast.”

Note: the picture of Wide Hollow school at the top is a postcard labeled North Yakima. That means the picture was taken before 1918 when North Yakima was changed to Yakima. So the school was originally built probably in the teens.

May 1 is also International Workers Day

May 1st is also recognized globally as International Workers’ Day. In 1889, the date was chosen by an international federation of socialist groups and trade unions to commemorate the Haymarket Affair—a violent deadly police riot in Chicago in 1886 targeting workers organizing for the eight-hour workday.

Here in Sonoma County, this year May Day marks the beginning of the Days of Action May 1-5, organized by Community United to Resist Fascism (CURF). The International Workers’ Day march will call for immigrant rights and is co-organized with the May 1st Coalition. The event will begin at 3 p.m. in Santa Rosa at the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, proceed to the Board of Supervisors’ office, and then continue to Old Courthouse Square to rally at 5pm. I’ll see you there!

For more information and to sign up for the coalition: https://www.pjcsoco.org/event—santa-rosa-protests-may-1—5.html