Folklore: Foodways/ How to make Irish Soda Bread

Genre: Folk saying/narrative/ Foodways, Irish Maureen Hurley
English-speaking Irish-American
December, 4, 2001

“Too many cooks spoil the broth,” “two people, three opinions,”
or how to make Irish soda bread without WW III erupting.

The tradition of making Irish soda bread in my family for guests has its roots in Bantry Bay, Co. Cork, southern Ireland, where my ancestors made it in over a turf fire in a Dutch oven. According to my grandmother, Jennie Walsh Reilly (b. 1893), who raised me in San Francisco, and later in Forest Knolls, Ca. (in the ‘50s), serving Irish soda bread and piping hot tea to guests was an absolute must, no matter what.

Because there is a correct procedure in which to make it, there was always plenty of contention among my grandmother’s sisters, Peig and Ceit, as to the proper sugar/ fat/ leavening ratio. My grandmother would frequently retort, “too many cooks spoil the broth,” or more rarely, “two people, three opinions.” 

The purists wouldn’t use baking powder, only baking soda (I remember when my grandmother began to use baking powder, a big concession), some were guilty of over sugaring the dough. Another (God forbid!) used Crisco (taboo) instead of butter. 

How three sisters, who got this recipe from their mother—and who quickly followed each other to the United States, each bringing the next sibling out the following year in the “teens”—could have developed such radical variations in making soda bread, is baffling. Whenever one visited the other, either arguments erupted whenever soda bread was served, or snide remarks about its lack of merit, were muttered under breath. I suspect that the brouhaha had something to do with maintaining tradition and issues of proper Celtic hospitality customs. 

I tend to think my grandmother’s recipe is the correct one as she was the eldest daughter, and so learned it first. Her eldest daughter, my aunt Jane (73), has also changed the recipe; she insists it’s the correct one, that mine is wrong (but I have it in my grandmother’s spidery handwriting.) But arguments still flare up whenever the recipe’s mentioned. Jane uses too much baking powder and too much sugar. 

I bet some of the sibling disagreement had to do with the fact that baking powder is a New World invention, and that using baking soda would be more authentic. (But according to food historians, bicarbonate of baking soda wasn’t used in cooking until a couple hundred years ago, in 1843). 

Does that mean quickbreads are a recent invention? No. Delving deeper, I found that soda ash aka washing soda, sodium carbonate/carbonate of soda was used as a leavening agent in the 1790s. But it was also used as a flux for glassmaking and soldering jewelry for at least 5000 years. Not to mention all that laundry. Why not use it in cooking too? 

Then it dawned on me that tracking chemical leavening use is obscure because of Passover or Easter. No yeast leavened bread allowed during Passover or Lent? The workaround was washing soda. Take pretzels invented by a wily peckish monk wanting a bit of bread during Lent in 610AD. Flour, water, and soda ash. No yeast. Ah, apocryphal stories waiting to be debunked. I found an earlier precedent of three-fold pretzel making which means using soda ash in cookery has ancient roots. 

You might also add pretzel’s progeny, bagels to the bread hagiography list, invented ca. 1200AD. Yeah, yeah, it was used on the outside as a browning agent via Maillard reaction. But my point is that cooks used soda ash for a variety of recipes. Like making shirakaki and ramen noodles. Now we also use bicarbonate of soda as a browning agent—to tenderize and brown meat too.

But I digress. We do know that commercially available carbonate of soda which needed to be activated with water, was used as leavening agent in the 1800s. (See recipe below). My grandmother said they substituted white wood ash (aka soda ash), pearlash or potash (or even muriatic acid) if they didn’t have baking soda.) 

My grandmother said caraway was a necessary ingredient—something to do with ancestors and the returning of the sun. For that reason, it’s also called Irish freckle bread. There were always plenty of people wanting my grandmother’s recipe for Irish bread. Whenever there’s a party or a Celtic event at UCB, I’m pressed upon to bring my soda bread. 

When we went through my absentee father’s things after he died 7 years ago, we found my grandmother’s handwritten recipe, she had given him during a rare visit, some 30 years before, carefully tucked away beneath the car visor flap. What was odd, was that the recipe, which was used (it had fat stains), was obviously transferred to his new car and we know he was on at least his third or fourth car. Why he carried the recipe there, we haven’t a clue.



THE CORRECT WAY TO MAKE JENNY WALSH REILLY’S IRISH SODA BREAD

An hour and a half before guests arrive, measure
2 and 1/2 cups unbleached white bread flour
(you may also substitute a little stone-ground whole wheat flour
and/or a 1/2 cup of oat flour for extra nuttiness; but grind it in a coffee grinder first.)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder (make sure it isn’t damp)
1 scant tablespoon sugar

Mix dry ingredients together.
add 1/2 cup raisins, or currants, but coat them well with flour so they won’t sink to the bottom
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds (optional)

Preheat oven to 400° and grease a small 6˝ to 8˝ round cast-iron skillet with butter, douse it liberally with flour so the bread won’t stick.

In another bowl, mix together:
1/3 cup melted butter, or oil (but dough will be wetter, add more flour)
1 beaten extra large egg
1 cup good quality fresh tart buttermilk; don’t use the synthetic stuff

Pour wet ingredients into flour mixture. Work very quickly as the soda reacts with the buttermilk to create the gas which gives this bread its loft. Fold ingredients gently with a spatula or spoon until just barely moistened. Mixture should be very stiff and dry. Don’t develop gluten by overstirring, otherwise it will be tough. 

Flip dough into skillet so that it’s nicely heaped up. Don’t pat it smooth. It should look like a craggy mountain. With a greased knife, cut the sign of the cross for the Savior or St. Brighid (four farls) on it, and immediately place it on the top shelf of the 400° oven. Bake 15 minutes at 400°; reduce head to 350°; bake for 45 minutes, or until done when an inserted knife (or clean broom straw) comes out clean. (Option: drizzle top of bread with melted butter and sprinkle surface with rolled oats before baking.) Makes one loaf.

 Recipe may be successfully doubled, but use slightly less less baking powder or it will taste metallic. (This is also true of your buttermilk isn’t up to snuff; the tarter, the better.)

Invert the loaf onto breadboard, let it rest a few minutes before serving. Bring to the table wrapped in a clean tea towel and serve farls slathered with generous portions of butter and jam, and gallons of piping hot tea with cream and sugar. (A drop or two of whiskey for the tea is optional).

See Irish Soda Bread Recipe too. UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Interpretation of Fairy tales, von Franz

Maureen Hurley Dec. 2, 2001
Anthro. 160A  Prof. Dundes

INTERPRETATION OF FAIRY TALES
Marie Louise von Franz
© 1970, Spring Publications, Dallas, TX

In selecting a text to read for a book report for this Folklore class, I read several books, including Henry Glassie’s “Irish Folk History,” and Vance Randolph’s “Pissing in the Snow,” both great collections of folk narrative, but I chose Dr. Marie Louise von Franz’s Interpretation of Fairy Tales because it represented an old albatross around my neck—a text I had tried to read when it was first released, but I failed—miserably.

Why I am discussing my relationship to the book is that I have folklore attached to it, and I wished to explore why the information in this classic text eluded me. I wish to slay an albatross. I will begin with a discussion about my previous relationship to the text and apply what I have learned in hindsight.

In the 1970s, I was a visual artist, interested in imagery and the subconscious. What was popular at the time was Jungian dream imagery. When I was in my 20s, I passively read the text, I hadn’t yet learned to actively engage in dialogue with the author—to look for and to challenge basic—if not hidden—assumptions. Call it subtext. Someone once said: “Your college education is a success if you graduate with shit detectors intact.” 

My former employer, Jungian enthusiast and occultist, Alice Kent (Kentfield, Marin), was an acquaintance of von Franz’s, and she often cited Jung’s ideas on dreams and personality structures. Some of it made sense, but I didn’t seem to have the cultural map to comprehend it. 

I dearly loved fairy tales (and folksongs) and wanted to know more about them. Von Franz’ text merely reinforced my feelings of inadequacy: I didn’t GET it. (It would be another 10 years before I was diagnosed with dyslexia; but by then, ever the auto-didact, I’d pulled myself up by my bootstraps and had become a literate omnivore). 

This was during the seminal era of what was later to be dubbed, “The New Age.” I was dissatisfied with the popular culture gurus: Joseph Campbell, Robert Graves, Fritz Perls—I felt cheated but I didn’t know why. And there’s the rub. And now, revisiting von Franz’s book some 30 years, later, I find myself better able to argue with many of von Franz’s basic tenants: especially Jung’s theory of collective unconscious, and on women’s roles.

Dr. von Franz, a student of Jung’s, delivered a series of lectures at the Carl Jung Institute in 1963. The bulk of Interpretation of Fairy Tales was transcribed from seminar notes; the book is divided into six sections including theories of fairy tales, myths and archetypes, psychological interpretation, and three case interpretations of a fairy tale, “The Three Feathers.” In 1970, Von Franz added an essay on shadow, animus and anima, and a bibliography, plus a spurious transcript of an interview.

It is difficult to determine who Dr. von Franz’ s audience is: whether her primary impetus is to defend a much maligned Jung, to offer analytical tools to Jungian psychologists, or to interpret fairy tales themselves as folklore. Who is her audience? Popular culture (the lay student), or psychologists? 

I found that as a folklore student, though there were ideas that enraged me, I couldn’t dismiss her work out of hand. There is material that is of use to the folklore student interested in collecting European fairy tales—specifically on the Germanic marchen.

In Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Dr. Von Franz begins with the impulses of how/why a fairy tale originates, and its function. Hero as abstract stereotype, tale teaches a moral lesson. 

What I found useful is her deconstruction of fairy tales into discrete units with diagrams. And her exploration of fairy tale tropes; for example: weak king, three sons, no rightful heir apparent. Which prince is best suited? Three tasks. Denial of task by elder sons, but youngest/dumbest wins kingdom, girl, etc. Uses of magic feather, ball, sphere to lead youngest son to the underworld. Missing functions and the seeking of balance between primal powers—whether it be fertility, masculinity/femininity, etc.

Dr. von Franz discusses how, when she doesn’t understand a fairy tale, she uses myth as parallels “because the greater closeness to consciousness of the myth material” gives her an idea about the meaning. (p. 18). 

She strongly advocates using as many variants of a fairly tale as possible, to understand their meaning, and in her bibliography, she lists Sith Thompson’s Tale Type indexes (but dislikes the cryptic annotation). She writes that myth is rooted in cultural context, and how it is “integrated into the body of conscious knowledge of that nation.” (p. 19).

I was fascinated with her discussions of various motifs. But when she tracks motifs from different cultures, and symbolically grafts them onto a tale from another culture—it is interesting but I would be wary of her synopses because, as she rightly points out, symbolism is a highly idiosyncratic classification system that varies from person to person and culture to culture. 

This stance is ironic in that she (rightly) lambastes the likes of Robert Graves and Joseph Campbell for being generalists. (The “everything is related to everything” theory.) With that in mind, unfortunately, one gets a whiff of the dirty laundry between Jung and the popular icons of the times, and of the rivalry between Jung and Freud than to folklore itself.

I am reminded of poet Bob Hass’ line from “Meditation at Lagunitas” (written ca. 1970), where he warns the poet against the danger of generalization: “each specific erases from the clarity of a general idea.” 

My criticisms of von Franz’s Interpretation of Fairy Tales revolve around the weakest link of Jung’s theory—that of a common collective unconscious. In order to maintain the late Jung’s pandemic generalism, she often forces her many sound insights into another kettle of fish, thin and they lose something in the process Von Franz compounds this flaw by using a Germanic cultural map for all European (and by extension, world) culture.

As a non Anglo-Saxon, I find some of her statements exclusionary. What about non Indo European cultures? For example, she uses the motifs of the king’s white horse and fog as symbols of Wotan/death, and giantesses washing clothes/weather.

 In Celtic mythology white horses are not Wotan’s symbolic transporting the dead to Valhalla, they are a sacral regnal representation and fertility rite of the great horse goddess, Rigatona/Epona/Rhiannon as kingmaker. 

This motif is annotated in Gerald of Wale’s 12th century account of visiting Ireland. Fog is a Celtic trope of entering the Otherworld, and animals with red hair, ears are Otherworld beings. These motifs are warnings that the hero is out of his element.

Finally, though this is a minor point of contention, at the other end of the spectrum, von Franz claims as a German custom, at midsummer festivals “throughout the Germanic agricultural region, people roll the fiery wheels down the mountains....(p. 115). 

In that my great-grandfather practiced this custom in Co. Cork, Ireland, during the 1860s to the 1890s, I would suggest that this is an Indo-European custom, not Germanic (or Swiss). I point these details to suggest that one should read her text with a critical, if jaundiced, eye and not to take her hypotheses at face value, though they do offer an insight into the German psyche as to the interpretation of Germanic fairy tales.

Von Franz makes some interesting remarks about Hitler’s inadequate psychic map, and post W.W.II Germany. But she doesn’t go far enough, as if she were afraid to delve in too deep. And I think her basic assumptions on women’s roles and desires, are off the old patronymic map. In several passages, von Franz often doesn’t distinguish whether she’s referring to fictitious women in fairly tales or to real women of the 1960s. A minor detail, but a wrong reading profoundly changes the context by which to read /interpret her ideas.

In her final essay on shadow, anima and animus, Dr. von Franz suggests that modern woman retains certain negative “animus” traits, and is unintegrated and therefore, is dissatisfied. But von Franz neglects to mention that fairy tales she cites as psychic templates were composed by men centuries earlier. Therefore the relatively few fairly tales about women are indeed exceedingly negative in nature—as their function was to ensure that women remained pliable and docile and unopinionated within the confines of a society long since gone. 

Ironically, if one were to hypothetically apply some of her observations onto herself, she too might be classified as “negative animus.” It would have been interesting if Von Franz had broadened her lens to include some of the studies of women’s roles during the 1970s when she compiled this manuscript, and again when she amended the book in 1978, instead of leaving it chained to the albatross of 1950s philosophy. 

 In revisiting this text, I discovered my own metaphoric albatross was merely an overweight, flightless seagull paddling around within the confines of a small pond after all.

Folklore: Superstition, Law of 3

Genre: Proverb/Superstition, British (myself)

December, 2, 2001

“Parsley goes nine times to the devil.”

My grandmother, Jennie Walsh Reilly (born in 1893, Co. Cork, Ireland, emigrated to California in 1919), who raised me in Forest Knolls, West Marin, Ca., had relatively few active superstitions for an Irish Catholic woman but this proverb was repeated several times on a yearly basis—especially to the parsley pot outside the kitchen door. My grandmother had trouble sowing the parsley and often roundly cursed it.

I first heard this proverb when I was quite young, during the 1950s (she was in her late 70s), but it wasn’t until I was a teenager before I thought to ask her what it meant. She explained that parsley was such a difficult herb to grow from seed, sometimes she’d have to sow it as many as three to five times before it sprouted. 

She never had such rotten luck as to have to sow it nine times though. I wasn’t sure what the devil had to do with it and the idea of him prowling around to have a look at our parsley was a daunting proposition. However, she did hide the pot away from view, “to keeps the cats from taking a snooze (or a shit) in the pot,” she’d explain. 

When the parsley sprouted, we’d chew on some of the leaves and she’d always tell me how “parsley was good for the heart.” She said that she must’ve learned the proverb in Bantry Bay, Ireland, where she most likely heard it from her mother (but she wasn’t sure), on their family farm, Coomb an nOr (Hill of gold). 

In the “Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs,” J.A. Simpson, ed. (Oxford, 1982), A terminus ante quem is suggested for “Parsley goes nine times to the devil.” as it is first notated in 1658 in Memes & Smith, “Wit Restored (34), “There is as saying in the North Riding of Yorkshire that the weed [parsley] before it’s borne nine times the devil sees.” (p 193). I would add that the ritual use of 9 (3 x 3) is a significant compound of the Indo-European Law of Three.

I don’t think my grandmother believed the devil was withering her parsley with his malevolent gaze, because the cats usually got blamed for it. Or she’d note that she either over watered the seeds or forgot to water them. She rarely indulged in evoking superstitions, she thought they were, nonsense; she was terribly practical for a Victorian Irish woman. I think her goal was to be an active bearer of the oral tradition and I was the intended recipient. 

She often said, of all her “children” (though I was her eldest-born granddaughter), I was the most like her in temperament. And she was forever filling my head with stories of the ancient Celts. I grew up in a divided world: I learned Irish history at home, and an Anglo-British version of history in school. Often the two didn’t correspond. Later, when I studied anthropology and epic literature in college, I discovered most of her stories proved to be true.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Folklore: Charm to ward off bad luck

Genre: Proverb/charm, Provençal?  (myself)
December, 2, 2001

Avanti, avanti, maleficium defense
(avantee, avantee mal-le feecee-ium defance)
out out evil protect Out, out evilness, and protect (me?)
honi soit qui male pense. let there be no thoughts which are bad.
(oni swoa kay mal-ee pance)
it that bad and thought

I first learned the proverb from a former boyfriend, poet John Oliver Simon (b. 1942), of Berkeley, Ca., ca. 1982. He used “Avanti” as a preventative magic superstition charm to ward off evil. The first time he used it was when he ritually smudged his house with sage to purify it ca. 1982, and another time, when we were in San Cristobál de las Casas, Chíapas, México, in the mid-’80s, during the New Age event, the Harmonic Convergence, touted by José and Ivan Argüelles.

But instead of harmony, it was as if the dead and the devils were truly on the rampage. While hiking, we met a gringa (American) who had been raped, and someone else was just murdered on the trail we were on....we were too close to the underbelly of the world.

The night of the so-called Convergence, I had nightmares that the dead were after me, and I kept waking up, screaming my lungs out, with my hands in the aura where their ghostly green presence was. After my third nightmare, John felt the need to purify us. He said “Avanti” was an old Provençal proverb from the Middle Ages, and he’d successfully used it as a charm for 20 years.

Still I was haunted, so we gave up the idea of sleep, climbed onto the roof and sat back-to-back with our elbows interlocked and chanted the charm as we watched the stars while waiting for dawn to arrive.

When I described the strange dead woman who visited me in my dreams that night, John said he recognized her; I’d described how she dressed, demonstrated how she stood, hand on hip, pointing to John. She had a message for him, but I couldn’t make it out. He said, “That’s Mickela, in Berkeley. Something’s happened.” I hadn’t a clue who Mikela was.

But next morning, a telegram arrived from the poet Alta, John’s former wife: Mikela died that night. The first apparition was a friend of mine, poet Dave Evans,—I wondered why he was in my dream.

When I returned home to the States months later, I learned Dave Evans had died that week of a heart attack. The third apparition was demonic, perhaps Jaguar & it wanted me. My Irish grandmother had the gift of the Second Sight, I’d dreamt of the deaths of Borg Haugen, and a poet-friend Boschka Layton, (sister of Donald Sutherland, & wife of poet Irving Layton), but I never dreampt of someone I didn’t know, and for another person. I’ve no explanation for it, as I don’t tend to place much stock in it. However, if I’m in a tight situation, I will say “Avanti.”

In an attempt to track down the origin of this proverb, I asked far and wide, to no avail, I couldn’t even get anyone to help me translate it. I was told it was medieval Provençal, but how could I prove it? It kept niggling at me. I knew this proverb from somewhere else, but where?

The only clue I had to go by was the 1994 movie, “The Madness of King George,” the king wears blue ribbons (the Order of the Garter) around his calves with the proverb printed on them. So I began to think of knights, and a UC Berkeley linguist, Renee Perelmuttter, said, “Isn’t that from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? He wears it on his girdle to remind himself of his foolishness. And then all the knights wore girdles too.”

Then I began to harbor some anatomical worries. Seething like Malvolio at cross-purposes with his garters, I pondered: why did they confuse girdles which presumably go around a man’s waist, to garters, which hold up one’s stockings around the calf or thigh?

The last line in the 1959 Penguin edition of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” indeed ends with: “HONY SOYT QUI MAL PENCE” (p 125). It is not in most of the Sir Gawain tales. I looked at 5 other tales. This particular version of Sir Gawain comes from the 14th c. Cotton Collection MS, Nero Ax, in the British Museum. A footnote revealed: “The conjunction of the green baldric and the motto of the Order of the Garter; but that order was founded by Edward III, in about 1347...” It went on to say that the Green Knight was originally associated with the Order of the Bath. And “Ritual purification of knights by bathing appears to have been practiced by the English as long ago as the 11th c.” Henry IV formalized the Order in 1349. So we have a terminus ante quem of the early to mid-14th c; and a possible 11th c. source. Since the story Sir Gawain is a Romantic reworking of an older Celtic tale (it first appears in the Ulster Cycle, in the 12th c. MS, Leabhar nahUidre), further research into Medieval French courtly poetry is required to see if I can locate the first line of the proverb.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Folklore: Sign Superstition/ Birds/ Death

Genre: Superstition/Folk Saying, Celtic  (myself)  December, 2, 2001
“A bird flying into the house
was to let death come into the house.”

My grandmother, Jennie Walsh Reilly (born in 1893, Co. Cork, Ireland, emigrated to California in 1919), who raised me in Forest Knolls, West Marin, Ca., had a few Irish superstitions about death. One was, “A bird flying into the house lets death come into the house.”

Since we lived in the country, and she usually left both the kitchen and front doors open in good weather, we often had winged visitors, including the wild towees that clustered like small chickens at the kitchen door to peck at the toast crumbs.

The first time I remember her telling me this death superstition was when a brown towee flew into the house. I was about six years old in the mid-50s. Since it was usually up to me to catch and release the birds before the cats spotted them, it was a time of great excitement, so I wasn’t too worried about the idea of portending death.

But later, when several deaths did occur after birds flew into the house, or banged against the windows, I began to sit up and take notice, filing the idea away for future reference....to test the hypothesis. I sensed the type of bird that entered the house also mattered by intensity of degree, but I couldn’t say why. Towees and bluejays were lower on the totem pole, a woodpecker or a wren had more significance. Ravens were the war goddess, the Morrígan’s own doomsday birds.

A variation of the bird coming into the house was when a bird tapped its beak or banged against a window—it didn’t matter whether it was inside or outside the house—it also portended a coming death. The combination of a bird entering the house and knocking were both omens of death signals. If my grandmother was wakened by the sound of knocking at night, she said it was a sure sign of death.

She’d wait for the bad news with resignation. And usually within the week or two, a letter would arrive from Ireland or California announcing the death of someone in the family. After the third time it happened, whenever a bird entered the house, I’d get goose bumps.

This is a sign superstition in that the event is our control. According to J.H. Brunvand in “The Study of American Folklore,” (Norton, 1966), “Superstitious death and funeral customs (category VII) reflect our fear of all things associated with death. A bird flying into the house...signs that were once widely regarded as sure omens of a coming death in the house...” (p. 387). Venetia Newall in “Discovering the Folklore of Birds & Beasts” (Herefordshire, Shire Publications 1946)writes that many birds, especially the owl, represents misfortune and death. (pp. 46-47). Ann Ross in “Pagan Celtic Britain,” (Academy Chicago Publishers, 1967), writes: “There are many references in [ancient] Irish literature to the drawing of omens from birds.....Evil is also divined in the flight of birds.” (p 329). The raven, the Irish war bird, was the most evil bird of all.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Folklore Parody song to tune of Auld Lang Syne

Genre: Folk Song (parody?)
Mike Tuggle, male, 60s
poet and painter
American, born in Oklahoma
Nov 30, 2001
Cazadero CA (residence)
JOSEPHUS & BOHUNKUS
(Sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne)

There was a father had two sons
and these two sons were brothers.
Josephus was the name of one,
Bohunkus was the other.

Now these two boys to college went
for reasons quite specific.
Josephus was religious bent
Bohunkus, scientific.

Now these two boys are dead and gone.
Long may their ashes rest.
Josephus of the cholera died.
Bohunkus, by request.

I first heard Mike Tuggle sing this song to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, at a poetry reading he was giving in 1980, in Sonoma County, Ca. Since then, I have heard him sing it at dozens of readings; it’s become somewhat of a trademark of his. And though I’ve sung the song to many others over the years, no one else seems to have heard of it, nor is it in any of my songbooks including my Irwin Silber Songbook, and my Alan Lomax folk song collections.

Mike said that his father taught it to him when they lived in Oklahoma, and that it was passed down through the family. Mike is Irish-American and Cherokee descent. He thinks it’s a folk history of sorts, modeled after a real event. I agree. I think there was also a middle verse with mules too.

I like to sing the song, because there’s more of it than first meets the eye. Even though it has a biting, moral tone, it offers an interesting world view. Given that the song is at least 75 to 100 years old, it refers back to an earlier era, perhaps the early 1800s, and the idea of both brothers going to college would have seemed unusual (and expensive) for midwesterners. (It turns up as a college song in at least two midwestern colleges).

It doesn’t strike me as a particularly eastern song, it seems to fit within the cowboy lament genre, even though one brother is a scientist and the other, a preacher/scholar. And the fact that they’re cremated seems a bit fantastic. Most songs—laments of the funereal genre, like The Streets of Loredo—tend to have coffins and graves in them. I like the irony of the last stanza, whether they were good or bad, they both still died in the end.

Mockingbird, Lake Tahoe

The mockingbird crows like a rooster and he’s got the cycle of the car alarm down pat. He’s got them all down, the right timing. Everything.  But the mockingbird’s tape seems frozen, he’s stuck in time, he’s listing, he falls off the TV antenna. Like a drunk. He’s the world’s biggest canary in the world. He falls off his perch when the opera singer leaps an octave, O mio bambino caro. He’s either in a jealous rage, or he swoons. It’s hard to tell with mockingbirds. The motel owner says the mockingbirds have been repeating the sound of the microwave for generations now. We no longer have that microwave, yet they teach its song to their young. The parrot not only rings, old school, rotary dial, but then he also answers the telephone, as if he were intercepting the answering machine.

N. Lake Tahoe
11/2001

Folklore: Superstition, Unexpected Guests/ Hospitality/ Luck

Genre: Custom/ Superstition Irish-American? (myself)

To set an extra place at the table during a feast
because it might attract an unexpected guest
(what is implied, an unexpected guest brings good luck).

I first remember observing the custom of setting an extra plate for the unexpected guest in the late 1950s when I was eight or nine years old—for Thanksgiving dinner. Because my grandmother who raised me, (Jennie Walsh Reilly, born in 1893, Co. Cork, Ireland), had a large family of eight children—with children of their own.

Thanksgivings were a huge affair with my cousins at the little table, and aunts and uncles & spouses galore at the big table. It was a madhouse of some 20-30 people, plates and chairs, all crowded in to the dining room & adjoining living room. How we were supposed to fit an extra guest in, I wasn’t sure. But we always set an extra plate, just in case—and invariably an unexpected guest arrived at the door just as we all sat down

My grandmother would always be the last one to sit down at the head of the table. It was almost as if she were waiting for that extra place to be filled before she sat down. She’d stall until we all got upset and demanded that she sit down. I’m not sure how I arrived at the idea that an uninvited guest arriving during the holiday was considered to be good luck. I just “knew” it, probably because when someone did arrive unannounced, my grandmother would welcome him with excitement and happiness (especially if it was a tall, dark, handsome man).

I suspect that this custom held some elements of a Celtic hospitality custom. My grandmother grew up in the oral tradition in the Southwest of Ireland, and I learned many Irish customs and tales from her. Serving tea to unexpected guests was part of that welcoming custom, though it would not be considered causal magic superstition. 

As I was collecting folklore, my aunts explained to me the custom of “George” the mythical extra guest. I’d heard about “George,” but never understood that other members of my family (3 generations) thought the extra place was for him as well—as my grandmother, Jennie, didn’t use the saying. She sometimes mentioned a McGregor. 

I remember her annotating it with a reference to Elijah—perhaps to tie it in with the Christian tradition. Though I didn’t find a specific reference in J.H. Brunvand’s “The Study of American Folklore,” (Norton, 1966), he does write that: “Superstitions associated with home and domestic pursuits (category III) usually concern cooking,...changing households....[and methods of] allowing someone to enter the house...” (p. 385).

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Folklore: Extra Dinner Guests

Genre: Proverb, British-American (myself) November, 22, 2001
“Wherever McGregor sits, he’s always head of the table.”

As two dozen of us sat down to Thanksgiving dinner this year out in the yard like pilgrims, having outgrown the house because another family had joined us, my uncle was late at arriving to the table. His wife, my aunt “Toddy” repeated the family saying, “Wherever McGregor sits, he’s always head of the table.”

I first remember hearing this saying in the late 1950s when I was around eight or nine years old—as we sat down for Thanksgiving dinner in Forest Knolls, Ca.

Because my grandmother who raised me, (Jennie Walsh Reilly., born in 1893, Co. Cork, Ireland), had a large family of eight children—who also had children of their own—Thanksgivings were a huge madhouse affair with my ten cousins (whose ranks later swelled to 18) at the little table, and aunts and uncles with spouses galore sitting at the big table—it was a sea of people, plates and chairs.

 How we were supposed to fit McGregor into all this, and who McGregor was, I wasn’t sure. But invariably some unexpected guest came to the door as we sat down and was squeezed in at the extra plate. I confused the two customs and thought the plate was for McGregor.

My grandmother would always be the last one to sit down—which was always at the head of the table. Why would she say this when she was already at the head of the table? And as she sat down, she’d say: “Wherever McGregor sits, he’s always head of the table.” 

I wasn’t too sure who McGregor was. She wasn’t a McGregor, she was a Walsh-Sullivan, but for years I figured he was an ancestor or relation of sorts. But he was Scottish and we were Irish. Even though a great-aunt married a Scotsman (Ward), I wasn’t too sure where McGregor fit into the scheme of things. I remember once worriedly looking up at the Reilly and Walsh family coats of arms on the wall, wondering what his crest would look like—maybe with a turkey or a plate in it.

I confused and conflated the saying of McGregor with another custom we had which was to set an extra plate at the table for the unexpected guest—an uninvited guest arriving during the holiday was considered to be good luck. 

As I was collecting this folklore, my aunts explained to me the custom of “George” the mythical extra guest. I’d heard about “George, but never understood that they thought the extra place was for him as well, as my grandmother didn’t tend to use the saying. She sometimes mentioned McGregor. I remember her once annotating it with a reference to Elijah as someone unexpectedly arrived at the door in time for dinner. 

Part of my confusion with McGregor/George had to do with the fact that I had to sit with the ever swelling ranks of little kids and I wasn’t allowed to join the big table until I was about ten. My birthday fell on Thanksgiving that year, I was allowed to join the adults. I remember puzzling over McGregor.

Interestingly enough, when I explained my confusion about McGregor and the extra plate, my aunt Jane, 73, went ballistic and thoroughly chewed me out with a character assassination which left us all stunned as I was explaining to my family that what made folklore unique was that there were variations in folklore and that this was my own (if flawed) variation. I don’t know why she got so angry, but that made it impossible to probe deeper into the origins of McGregor.

I had to later re-interview my other aunts and cousin in order to get their opinions as to what they thought it meant. I think Jane was threatened by the process of analysis of the folklore which they rejected the idea that McGregor had something to do with Scots thriftiness and stinginess, though they did mention freeloaders and free meals. 

My aunt “Toddy” said the association with McGregor was “so nobody would feel bad wherever you sat because you might get shifted from your place if a stranger came.” We all learned to associate McGregor with the extra plate.

I always thought my grandmother’s usage of McGregor had to do with the famous betrayal and slaughter of the Scottish Highland McGregor clan, invited to the rival Campbell clan’s stronghold for a feast at Glencoe, then killed by the treacherous Campbells—a horrific breach of Celtic hospitality. She’d often use “The Campbells are coming” as a threat. I thought she was honoring the slain McGregors, they’d always be welcome at our table. But when we looked up this story, we discovered the McDonalds were slaughtered in 1692 by the Campbells, not McGregor.

The idea of resurrecting clanship may not be far off the mark. I think my grandmother, as acting head of the Reilly clan, abdicated her personal role, and stood in place for the absent chieftain (hence the mythical McGregor), since her husband had died in the 1950s. My grandfather, as the eldest surviving male Reilly (a sept of the O’Neils), had the legal right to claim the family holdings in Co. Longford, Ireland, but he chose not to do so.

Note Bene: Looking McGregor up in Scottish and British proverb sources yielded nothing, but when I flipped through Archer Taylor & Bartlett Jere White’s “American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, 1820-1880,” (Harvard, 1958), while looking up “shank’s mare,” another favorite of my grandmother’s, I stumbled upon: “Wherever Macdonald sits, there is the head of the table.” The quote is listed as Emerson’s Works 1, 105, (p. 232), but I suspect it’s much older than that. This makes our McGregor an interesting variation indeed.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections

Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Integration Games ('Lupe)

‘Lupe turned out so beautiful it made your eyes hurt, with her blue-black hair, honey-colored skin and green cat eyes all turned up at the corners with lashes that threatened to put Maybeline right out of business. But then, I hadn’t seen her since eighth grade when her family moved away from the Valley after her uncle Dean died. So strange seeing her working at the health clinic like that, after all these years. Not exactly a place you want to run into a long lost best friend. Not too many families from our end of the Valley ever escaped ’cause no one ever seemed to have two dimes to rub together, let alone, two month’s rent in a row—especially in winter when work was scarce.

Over the Hill, the idea of Town was another country, another state of mind most of us were incapable of traversing. The Valley, with its rural poverty and geographic isolation was practically a third-world country by comparison. White’s Hill was always threatening to slip at the pass after heavy rain and the townies, they just kept away, afraid they’d slip off into the ravine, or worse, into poverty, as if it was the clap or something. The old timers always said the pavement at the pass was over 50 feet thick and that was before it dropped another 5 feet during the big storm in the Fall of ’64. So the townies, they mostly kept away, which was fine by us, except they called us Valley Rats just to even up the score.

And if the National Seashore hadn’t happened with LadyBird Johnson and all, I bet we’d still be cut off from the world. Instead, we prepared for mass invasions each weekend, but the townies, they never stopped, they never bought anything at the Little Store, or at the House of Richard—that’s a hippie store in Forest Knolls—or DeLacy’s Store in Lagunitas.

They say Darryl Wilburn mostly burned down the rest of both the villages—village is too big a word for where we lived— there wasn’t much left to stop for anyway—unless you needed gas at Urien’s gas station, which was coffee shop where you could get a candy bar, some smokes or a beer. By that time Darryl had burned down all the historic building and watering holes: Speck McAuliff's bar, The Little Store, the ice cream parlour. The only thing he didn't burn down was the Saloon, but it was made of stucco and a family later bought it, so it was a steadier source income than selling firewood.

There was also a garage at Uriel's where our school busses were repaired and a trailer park out back. The Uriels diversified—but the price of gas was too high even for the townies. But Don Uriel was fine to look at standing behind the bar in faded jeans and a white teeshirt choking down a cool one—even if he was old. He really looked like James Dean but if he fixed your car, there were extra parts left over.

I remember how I was so lonely that last year in grade school without ‘Lupe showing me the ropes like—how to rat your bangs. Or what happens if you throw a cherry bomb down the girl’s bathroom toilet and time the flush just right. ’Lupe was always explaining important things like that. Ratted bangs were where the older townie girls stored their arsenal, as she sprayed a half-can of Aqua Net on her bangs to keep them firmly anchored in place. They were frosted so stiff it was like a picture of the wire on top of the Berlin Wall in winter. We were all gearing up for the Big Move to high school Over the Hill. We were being bussed into new territory like those kids from Montgomery, Alabama, only we weren’t Black, we were just poor.

Talk about climbing over walls, I had to find out the hard way about the wall that also divided the Valley when I accidentally repeated to July about what I heard about Kathy Unterberg doing it and maybe being knocked up. I’d never been in a real fist-fight before. I refused, I didn’t want to hit her in the jaw; afraid it might break. It’s not like I didn’t know how, with my brother and all. I always got into more trouble if I hit his face. But she came at me like a watermill and I had no choice. I wasn’t mad at her, so my heart wasn’t in it. She was from Woodacre, you know—the snotty end of the Valley. I was glad ’Lupe wasn’t there to see me so humiliated.

I guess I was kinda jealous ‘cause Katrinka was going out with ‘Lupe’s cousin, Duane de la Ventana—who was to drop-dead-to-die-for gorgeous. July finked that secret out to the world too. Some friend she was. One step up from trailer trash, and living at the dividing line between San Geronimo and Woodacre, she was quickly figurin’ out what side of the Valley her bread was buttered on.

Duane, he was so gorgeous, I couldn’t wait for Thursdays after school—that was catechism day—when we all rode the bus down to St. Cecelia’s church together. He was so cool, he combed his hair just like Elvis. He was always patting his pompadour like it was a newborn baby, and admirin’ it in the mirror or in windows when he thought no one was looking.

Taydie Waverwick was absolutely nuts for Elvis too, she used to wear her hair like his too—which was confusing. She could croon every song he recorded but she was sorta weird with her big boobs and all. She always wore these cowgirl outfits with rhinestones and white go-go boots.

We used to speculate that Taydie's boobs were fake water balloons. She was big as a cow—not at all like Dolly Parton—and she wore rhinestone glasses to match. She used to pick on us runts until one day, in self defense, I accidentally punched her out in the boobs. I was cornered, no place to run—I was the fastest kid in the school. But like I said, I was cornered and I was too short to hit her in the jaw. I really expected them to pop, or something, but her eyes got all watery instead and I felt bad. Anyway, after that, she decided to be my friend. As long as she didn’t want to mash her lips on me it was OK, I guess.

That’s how I inherited the new girls, Phoebe and Elvie, as friends—through Taydie. I knew I was stepping down the evolutionary ladder a bit, but beggars can’t be choosers. Elvie and Eddie, the twins, had already been to Juvie a few times, and their mom was officially on welfare—we always knew who was on welfare on account of where they lived, down on Resaca Road where Papermill Creek always flooded in winter. What I didn’t know was many others were on welfare until much later. Folks was good at hiding things.

Phoebe talked funny ’cause she had a hare lip. She showed us the place where the hole in her palate was and then push some food through it just to gross us out. But sometimes after school, we’d all sit around as if we were good friends instead of accidental leftovers and we'd lip sing all the songs to Elvis’s albums: Don’t be cruel to a heart that’s true... I heard Taydie later became a cowboy singer in Vegas. I didn’t ask as to what sexual persuasion.

When I was younger, I especially loved going over to ‘Lupe’s house after school, her mom would make us the best fresh tortillas and there were always babies to play with. ‘Lupe smelled so fine, like the roses on her saint’s namesake. Her mom only used her whole name when she was real mad at ‘Lupe, which was almost never ’cause ‘Lupe was that kind of sweet. I hardly knew who saint Guada’Lupe was—other than the fact she had roses on her lap.

Once I was chosen for Queen of the May and had to climb up the altar and crown Mary’s head with roses so that sort of made ‘Lupe and me sisters under the skin. One time we both had wounds and so we sealed it with blood. Like with Katrinka. It seems there were always plenty of babies smelling like sour milk and poop, not roses—no matter whose house I was at.

‘Lupe’s mom was usually expecting, but then, so was Katrinka’s mom, Mrs. Larsen, there were 11 kids in her family and we always thought there was something not quite right about Beanie & Booboo. One of ’em fell on his head out of a car which didn’t improve things any.

Mrs. Walton also had 11 or 12 kids but they were all way older than us—except for Scotty, the baby—his brother Clark was old enough to be his father, and he was blind as a bat as well, but he could sing real good. Especially Peter, Paul & Mary songs. He never shaved and looked like a prophet right out of the Bible with his beard and baggy clothes and all—I guess he couldn’t see to shave and no one else wanted to do it for him.

His brothers used to lead Clark up and down the dirt roads—it was like Blind Man’s Bluff, but for real. I was especially confused by this as I once thought he might be related to Superman, and I thought that maybe he was faking at being blind ’cause he was really in disguise, you know, like Clark Kent.

The Waltons lived at the top of the ridge where Mount Barnabe joins up to the long ridge where I lived on the other side. You could go for miles on those ridges and never see a soul: Nicasio, Bolinas, even Fairfax, but to get to Mount Tam, you had to cross the ravine at Alpine Dam but the horses were too afraid of the bridge.

Sometimes, after school, I’d sneak up over the ridge on horseback over the fire road that connected our little Arroyo valley, off Barranca Road, where I lived, to the Walton’s place in Lagunitas— only there weren’t any lakes in Lagunitas, they were all at the other end of the Valley, the rich end, but our end, all the lakes were dried up and stingy—except for the one at Borrillo Ranch near the school.

After ‘Lupe moved, Duane’s family moved into the Borrillo Ranch for a while so I’d ride my horse past whenever I got a chance. When they moved to San Geronimo, it was harder to think up an excuse to ride by ’cause they lived at the end of the fire road. And if I did ride by, you know, casual-like, to be cool, but then I was stuck riding for several hours along Bolinas Ridge above Kent Lake to Lagunitas and then I had to double back on the next ridge just to get home ’cause you couldn’t get off the ridge in between, the ravines were so steep and besides, the scrub was impenetrable. And in fall, with the days growin’ shorter by the minute, there just wasn’t enough time after school to ride both ways and get home before dark. Forget about homework, you could hardly sit after that kinda ride.

Anyway, sometimes Mrs. Walton would give me fresh doughnuts—still sizzling from the hot grease. Don’t ask how I always knew when she was frying doughnuts, it was luck, I guess. Riding home in the dark, licking sugar from my lips took away some of the edge of being under the tall pines where you couldn’t even see the horse’s ears in front of you, but Chiquita—she was steady as a bulldozer—she could see just fine, even if it was pitch black and besides, she always knew the way back home, no matter how far we roamed.

The Wilburns—they had a lot of kids too but they were another matter altogether, they even adopted a couple of their sister’s youngest orphaned cousins—it seems she couldn’t handle her growing tribe. I was convinced Brenda, the redhead, was specially put on this earth to make my life miserable whenever possible. But she’s dead now. Water under the bridge. And my grandma said not to speak ill of the dead. I wonder whatever happened to her that she’d take her own life like that, behind the post office where we’d smoked our first cigarettes....

Don’t you dare tell a soul...I don’t wanna say too much more about them as I’m telling you about real people and they’re all still alive and as mean as ever, thinking they’ve come up a notch in the world and now they own the local bar—the one Darryl didn’t burn down. Them’s that aspire toward the middle class are the most vicious.

But it’s my story and I have the right to remember—even if some folks don’t like it that way, preferring revisionist history to the truth. I guess I could change all the names for the story’s sake, but then I never could think of anything better than the real thing. Besides, their real names resonate in me like bells until I get goose bumps on my heart like when I look at the sacred heart of Jesus or like when the cat licks your lips and your stomach goes all squidgy on you like with your first kiss.

Besides I’ve nothing they want, and it’s all common knowledge anyway. Except they could burn down my granma’s house—which at this point would be a favor since the cousins moved in. As I was saying, it’s really ironic, as Darryl, the eldest kid, proceeded to burn down half the Valley, leaving us with no villages at all—just greasy wide spots in the road where the buildings used to stand. Darryl, he got ’em all, only no one could prove he did it.

The Lagunitas ice cream parlor, both train stations, and the Forest Knolls store with its covered boardwalk—which was a cryin’ shame as they were just like props out of a western movie, only they were real, not fake. But all that pyrotechnics put poor Harry Bolton right out of business.

Harry, a newcomer with money to burn, fell in love with the vintage buildings and had big plans for the Valley long before Marin was “discovered.” It was pretty exciting while it lasted. We even forgave him for building his monstrosity of a house on Horse Hill at the foot of Arroyo Road. It was real cool, with a fake waterfall inside it.

But Darryl really fixed his wagon. Wherever Darryl went, buildings mysteriously burned down. I bet he burned down half the River. Maybe it’s because his father sold firewood, I don’t know. Why, when he was a young child, he even burned down his own family home. Only problem is, everyone was still at home when it happened. That was when it all started, when we knew something quite right, but everyone said he was just a child—couldn’t have known what he was doing—except two youngest brothers also died in the fire.

I remember Mr. Begley coming around collecting clothes and mattresses for the Wilburn family—on account of him having a truck. It was a baby blue Ford and it looked so odd without its camper shell and its vegetables all in neat rows. Instead, all our discarded belongings were stacked up naked like in the movie, “The Grapes of Wrath.”

I didn’t want to give up my favorite old quilt as it was my grandpa’s and he was dead… but Grandma said I had to, ’cause there was folks out there less fortunate than us. But Darryl knew what he was doing alright when he burned down the store, ’cause he did it a third time too. Any empty building seemed to be fair game.

Someone later said that one of the new owners of the Lagunitas Store banked on Darryl's firebrand reputation to burn down the Lagunitas Store and collect the insurance. Stories have a way of coming out eventually. Darryl got blamed for it just the same.

Now, I ain’t sayin’ Darryl did it, but when McAulliff’s bar burned down, that was the worst loss of all, ’cause Teddy Roosevelt used to stop there after huntin’ and they say Maple Leaf Rag was composed on that piano. Someone was burning down all our heritage until there was nothing left. Now some fancy-ass contractor lives there—says he restores historic buildings and all that, but I see he hasn’t bothered to restore McAulliff’s.

Anyway, up the hill from McAulliff’s, that was where Mrs. Begley and her whole tribe of kids lived—all in ragged Ma Joad clothes and that wall-to-wall dirt on their faces made their eyes seem especially watery and puckery on account of the Pink Eye—they were like sour grapes when you bit them in two. You just wanted to squeeze their eyes until the dirt made runnels down their cheeks.

Mr. Begley—who sold us vegetables from his camper truck, he was nice—he sometimes gave us kids the small wilted carrots. We’d all pretend we were Bugs Bunny and say: Hey, what’s up. Doc? and munching like demented rabbits. Here the Begleys had no money at all, and he was giving us the stuff he needed to sell. Dinner at the Begleys consisted of lots of rice and vegetables. That’s the first time I ever ate zucchini with catsup.

Now, Mack’s mom, Mrs. LaRoche… I sorta lost count of how many kids she had—maybe ten? twelve? Anyway, Mack—he was an altar boy along with Mark French and Johnny Hoffmann—they used to finish off the sacrificial wine on the sly when Father Connery got done with it. But Mack was murdered by the Zebra Killer and later on, his little brother went crazy, killing an old lady he was robbing for dope money. The hardest thing about his trial was that I had friends on both sides of that courtroom. He pleaded insanity.

Come to think of it, it seems like there was something not quite right about most of the youngest kids in all those big families. It’s hard to say whether it was genetics giving out, or that it was the mothers who were just plain old worn out after raising and refereeing a baker’s dozen of kids squabbling and carrying on like banshees—with the babies literally getting away with murder.

My grandma, she only had eight kids, and the only one who was really crazy was my mom. Two of my aunts are a bit crazy too, but everyone thinks they’re perfectly normal—which is much scarier than having a bonafide crazy mom. We call them The Bags on account of the cavernous naugahyde purses they carry—you could furnish entire bathroom suites with them.

At least everything’s out in the open with my mom. I didn’t see very much of her as she was always off to Hollywood or Vegas—working for Frank Sinatra doing the showgirl costumes. Mostly feathers and beads. Yes, Sinatra. Old Blue Eyes himself. She said he was real nice; had a drink with him. She knew people like that.

Sometimes it was off to Napa State Hospital too. So it was hard to tell fact from fiction…. Remind me to tell you sometime about Tommy Smothers and Sterling Hayden—they used to baby-sit me over at the Gate Theatre… but that’s another story…. Also, remind me to tell you about the time my baby cousin visited Jerry Garcia’s medicine cabinet on Resaca and had to get her stomach pumped too...

Where was I? Oh, yeah, babies. Anyway, I hardly ever saw any of the moms at the communion rail who weren’t expecting It was as if there were this invisible line across the Valley at the Nicasio turn-off where the big families began. We were all segregated out in second grade when the nuns came and asked us Catholics to raise our hands and there we were, branded from the San Geronimo and Woodacre kids who came from small families and usually had their fathers living with them.

My mom must have had something of the bad Valley seed with her as she once sent me home a baby brother which I didn’t particularly want. Home was with my grandma. My mom was always wild, bucking what my grandma said about sticking to your own kind—you know, race, religion, and all.

My mom, she was like a cat always dropping litters—most of them died—two more lived, but I don’t want to talk about them. One was adopted by an aunt but wound up in Pelican Bay and the other lives in Azuma somewheres—see, he has cerebral palsey and was in a wheelchair—he was kidnapped by the state. That’s what made my mother crazy.

‘Course, I never actually told a soul that she was crazy. I said she was an actress in Hollywood, which was true, and she was in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World with Jack Lemmon—but she was pretty hard to spot in that crowd scene.

Anyway, the state, they lied about stealin’ the baby and my mom spent 25 years looking to find that poor child. She knew that he existed, I mean, she gave birth to him and that’s something you’re not likely to forget—even if you were crazy.

He—Billy Panis, the baby, he was named after this Filipino guy she married so that he could get a green card— he made costumes too—but some gay lover murdered him. It was in all the papers. I once helped sew beads on Miss Korea and Miss Universe’s dresses—they were like angel wings.

Anyway, Billy, he eventually found her when he was an adult and the laws changed, but by then, it was way too late. She was just too used to being crazy. I think it was 60 Minutes or some TV show like that who wanted to do a story on the reunion and all, but I don’t think middle America was quite ready for us. Even we were never quite ready for us, ourselves. Where was I? Oh yeah, I was telling you about my first major crush, on Dennis De la Ventana….

Once a week, I used to love waiting out at the fence post by the bend in the road, for Duane's father, Dean, who was the milkman. He always had something for me: a candy or a kind word. But in winter it was just too hard to get up that early and sometimes the milk would freeze in the bottles and the cream would push up the little paper flap that said “Lucas Valley Dairy” on it, and all the cats would be lined up around the three bottles licking away at the little white pillars of cream while fighting off the birds.

My grandma always got three bottles. If one went off, she made these cottage cheese pancakes for dinner—especially during Lent. One time I ordered orange juice from him but she made me give it back ’cause we couldn’t pay for it. You could get eggs too but we got ours’ from Mary Bianchi.

Dean—he looked like Dean Martin—he used to drive around in this big white convertible with red seats—it was like a steamboat. Sometimes he’d pick up Duane and ‘Lupe after school and give us rides home. But one night after the bars closed, Dean, he flipped that big white convertible on the hill at Lucas Valley Road, and that was that. They say it was a closed casket ceremony.

I was surprised to see Duane in school the next day. Didn’t know what to say to him. I mean, what do you say to someone whose father had to be scraped off the road with a spatula? But Duane, he wore this black sweater with a big purple band like arms wrapped around his chest and carefully patted his hair. That was when I decided purple was my favorite color. I was a little in love with death and wanted to embrace the color of mourning, or of forgiveness, more like it.

But after that, things began to change, everything unraveled and ‘Lupe’s family moved away, into town. I was so lonely without my best friend. The others didn’t quite fill the void that ’Lupe had left. And I never even got to kiss Duane, not even once.

10/31/2001
rev © 2002 Maureen Hurley

Segregation Games (Archie Williams)

SEGREGATION GAMES

Our idea of cruising was to take the horses down to the highway on hot summer weekends—especially Saturday afternoons—to catch the tourist traffic coming back from the seashore. Used to be no traffic out here in the valley. But after Ladybird Johnson and her Secret Service came here in ’66, there’s been a steady stream of traffic ever since. Saturday afternoons, you could hardly cross the highway for the traffic. As I said, it was summer, we were all dressed up in halter tops and cut-offs, we’d collect our horses up between our creamy thighs and they’d rear and leap like Pegasuses. You know, like in the MGM movie? Not that I got to see that many movies, we didn’t have a car to get into town. On horseback, we’d race alongside open convertibles the size of boats, full of rich Sleepy Hollow boys all dressed in white tennis sweaters, sunburnt golden and blond, heading back to town. We’d try to catch their eyes in the hopes of tracking them down later on in school. But their girlfriends ran a pretty tight defence, with their dagger eyes. We couldn’t get past ’em.

Where the guys hung out in school was critical. The parking lot was segregated into the hard guys’ and jocks’ turf. Sometimes there were skirmishes when one gang crossed into another’s territory, but they saved the gladiator games for after the football matches. The cheerleader types sat on the jocks’ laps in their souped-up cars parked by the gym, smoking and necking during recess. The hard guys and Spics who hung out by the palm tree, all looked like James Dean, hair greased back, tight T-shirts n’ jeans. Tino was to-die-for-gorgeous, he’d wear these tight black jeans that wrapped ‘round his hips like snakeskin and teeshirts so white, they’d blind you, but those guys never went out to the ocean. Fourth Street was their turf.

You could always tell the greaser chicks, no matter where they hung out, they were always ratting their hair and spraying it until it was stiff as glass, and they were forever rebuilding their eyelashes with Mabeline. The palm tree in the hard guy’s corner always reminded me of the story of Jesus riding into Bethlehem on an ass. Or was it Mary? Once I had to play Joseph dragging my white ass through Marin City, with all these little Black kids who never even saw a donkey before, let alone a skinny white kid dressed in bedsheets in their neighborhood. It was a long way to Bethlehem at the bottom of the hill.

Hallowe'en customs in Bantry Bay, Cork, Ireland, ca.1896

My grandmother, Jennie Walsh Reilly was an active bearer of the oral tradition, she died October 23, 1987, at the age of 93. Ever since I was a young, she'd tell me of Irish customs she practiced from when she was a girl especially Samhain—or Hallowe'en—(Oct. 31st). Many of these calendar customs have died out or transmuted into something else, which was a sore point of contention with her.

I remember how she'd snort as if to set the record straight: "Americans! They don't know anything about Hallowe'en. All this nonsense. They think jack-o-lanterns are made from pumpkins, but pumpkins are a New World food. We didn't even have them in Ireland. We used to carve out big turnips and put a candle in them and placed them in each window of the house so that our dead could see their way back home.

"We'd decorate the window frames with evergreens: ivy, holly, yew. Hallowe'en—or Samhain, which is its proper name—the priests were great ones for renaming all the pagan holidays. You see, they couldn't get the pagans to stop worshipping the holidays. Especially not Hallowe'en which was the first day of the Celtic New Year. You have your All Hallow's Eve, that's Hallowe'en, that's for the pagans; All Saints' Day—that's November 1st; and All Souls' Day, which is Nov. 2nd. That's for all the rest of us.

"Hallowe'en was the time when the world between the living and the dead had thin boundaries, and spirits form the Otherworld could come visit. That's why we wore masks—so they wouldn't recognize us. Sometimes the boys would blacken their faces with charcoal. And we made bull roarers out of pig's bladders on the end of a stick that made a great noise when we whipped it. Sometimes the boys would kill a wren and put it on the end of the stick too.

"There were pranks too. And we'd go visit the neighbors to trick AND treat. It's not trick OR treat. You have to do a trick first. It means that you do a trick, sing a song, recite a poem, and then they'd give you a treat—sometimes an half-penny if they had it. Not like here where kids want candy without doing a trick first. No siree...."

My grannie was very upset with the American commercialization of Samhain; though she was Christian, she had a lively interest in keeping the old traditions alive. In J.H. Brunvand's "The Study of American Folklore," (Norton, 1966), he offers a quote from folklorist Sylvia Ann Grider who noted: "Halloween costumes used to represent the supernatural beings of the otherworld..." (p 574).

From the UC Berkeley Kroeber Hall Folklore Files.

Folklore: Fertility Rites

Family story about a farm fertility custom, driving cattle between two fires on Samhain & Beltaine, circa 1896.

My grandmother, Jennie Walsh Reilly was born in 1893, on the Walsh family farm, Coomb an nOr (valley of gold), outside the town of Bantry Bay, Co. Cork, Ireland. She emigrated to California with her aunt Mae in June, 1912—literally having missed the boat when the Titanic sailed—and sank—in April), and raised me in Forest Knolls, West Marin, Ca. Ever since I was a young child (and sole companion after her husband died in 1956), she was always after telling me stories about life and customs on their family farm in Ireland.

I remember the story (usually told on Hallowe'en), of how her father, Michael Walsh, would fill two oak barrels with tar and then drag them to the top of their hill at Coomb an nOr each Beltaine Eve (April 31st) and Samhain—or to use the Christianized name, Hallowe'en—(Oct. 31st), he'd light them at dusk, and then he'd drive the family cattle between the two burring barrels.

She said that the custom was to make the cattle fertile for the coming season. Then, after the cattle were smoked, he'd finish up by rolling the still-burning barrels down the hill to make a firetrail.

My grandmother explained that this custom was done on the evening of Oct. 31st, which is the first day of the Celtic New Year (The Celtic day begins at sunset); and Beltaine (the god Bel's fires) was the beginning of summer. Sometimes on Beltaine, he'd also cover a wagon wheel in tar and roll that down the hill too. Someone later said it was a Catherine wheel.

We had several fire-related rituals that had seasonal significance. My grandmother's attempt to recreate for me a version of this ritual—since to roll a burning barrel down our dry, grassy hill (also named Coonb an nOr) in West Marin, was a form of pyrotechnic suicide—her solution was to build a big fire in the fireplace (which was a converted ship's boiler), or to light herbs and to smudge the house.

And once, when I was eight or nine (1968), she put a candle in the middle of the living room floor and told me leap over it. I don't know whose idea it was to sing the nursery rhyme, "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick," since this causal magic act was never repeated, I'm not sure if it qualifies as folklore, but it had a profound lasting impact on me.

My grandmother explained that the people of pagan Celtic Britain and Ireland traditionally celebrated these two dates with bonfires, and told me how she celebrated Hallowe'en in Ireland, hollowing out turnips and placing them in the windows, etc.

Ann Ross in "Pagan Celtic Britain" (Academy Chicago Publishers, 1967), wrote, "During the festival [Beltaine/Samhain] Druids seemingly drove cattle between fires." (p 83).

I believe my grandmother and her father were both aware of the ritual use of causal magic to promote cattle fertility, but probably didn't believe in it, and that the use of smoke as a purification was a practical application of folk medicine to remove parasites, a sound agrarian practice. For me, the story captured a lost fragment of our pre-Christian past.

From the UC Berkeley Kroeber Hall Folklore Files.

Folklore: Stumbling = Death

"The one who stumbles (in the grave) is the next to go"
and a variant,"they're grabbing after you."

In 2001, my third cousin Mary Kate Walsh and her sister came to visit us in America, from Bantry Bay, Co, Cork, Ireland, and we had a big party at the Sullivan's on Skyline in SSF. As everyone was catching up on who was still alive and who was dead, the talk gravitated toward stories of death and the supernatural.

What was interesting was their avoidance of the words "death" and "grave," it was suggested with pauses in speech. Mary Kate didn't elaborate on the saying, it was "understood," rather than spelled out. When we asked her about it, she meant, stumbling anywhere—as opposed to only on graves.

This sign superstition seems to be a fairly common one as several of my sources used variants of it. The idea being that you invited death in by stumbling on the graves of the dead. What intrigued me, this particular saying didn't even mention the word "grave" at all, so theoretically, the act of stumbling anywhere could be a portent of a death to come. Which made one think about being doubly careful about walking around.

Suddenly the taboo zone of danger exponentially broadened to include everywhere, not just graveyards. So many times when an elderly person falls and breaks a hip, it is the beginning of the end, and many do die within the year. It as if the act of stumbling is akin to dying, and that you're always a step away from the grave.

From the UC Berkeley Kroeber Hall Folklore Files.

DINSMORE folk narrative

DINSMORE

Sean is John in English. Sean’s great-great-great-grandfather was John Reilly and his great-grandfather’s name was John Joaquin Santos. In the Irish family tree, John is a common name.

Sean was adopted by his aunt Sinead when he was a baby. His cousin Sean Ritter was also adopted at birth by his aunt Kathleen, or Toddy. Sean Ritter has three daughters Tiffany, Brittany and Taryn. The family adored playing with Tiff and carrying her everywhere. 

Sean’s grandfather’s name is James John Santos and his uncle is James John Santos, his dad’s name is John James Santos.

My last name is Dinsmore, which means large fort. But this is a story of name changes a generation ago. I’m also a Robinson of the Clan Gunn of Scotland, from the Highlands of Scotland. My great-grandfather Jarold Robinson made some changes. He had troubles in Alaska, or in the Orient, and on his way back to San Francisco, he became David J. Dinsmore. 

During WWII, the Federal Government insisted that he legally get his name changed, to David J. Dinsmore. He had a wife and child. Our great-great-grandfather was an actor with a new name. John Stark Robinson became John Stark, the actor. Vaudeville would become a way of life. His younger son, John Stark, was a pilot during WWII.

I began life as Sean Joseph Cobb. When I was adopted, I became Sean Joseph Dinsmore. The plan is when I reach 13, my new name will be Sean Joseph Santos—after my biological father. Santos is Portuguese and it means "saint" in English. So All Saint’s Day has special meaning to my family.

My mom’s grandfather lived in Nicasio, in my house now. Great-grandpa David J. Dinsmore was a adventurer. He traveled by trains, hobo style from Missouri to California. He was out plowing the fields and heard the train, he left the mules tied. During his many trips he boarded ship to the Orient and traveled to Alaska. 

During the stock crash of 1929 he went from being a rich man to buying his bride a dime store wedding band. Grandpa William was born during the Great Depression of the 30s. The house in Haight Ashbury in San Francisco caught fire, Great-grandma threw her son from the window and jumped out herself. The doctor told Great-grandpa to take his wife and child away from the city for awhile. Nicasio was where they settled, Great-grandpa was part of the WWII efforts in West Marin/Nicasio war preparation. 

Grandpa William went to school at the Old Red School House in Nicasio, he was the last graduate of 1948. Great-grandpa was a barber in Novato until he retired. He was always dressed in suits and snazzy clothes of the time. 

Great-great grandma Gogee lost her sight and had to live in care facilities until she died. Great-grandpa had troubles with his sight and he became blind. Whenever he walked to the mail-box he’d walk across the baseball field. If a game was in play the guys would stop while he walked through. Peter Edwards would be were he’d stop to have his mail read....

REILLY folklore

REILLY

My great uncle, John Alexander Reilly was named after Alexander O'Reilly who escaped Ireland during Cromwell's time. He went to Spain, a Catholic country, and became a general, and he was appointed Governor of Louisiana territory and Puerto Rico. While in the Americas, he built a fort in Puerto Rico’s El Castillo. His portrait is hanging in the fort today.

Another ancestor, Myles The Slasher O’Reilly fought at the battle of Fean. Myles was a soldier who was defending a bridge in Westmeath at Fean. During the battle Myles single-handedly with his sword in hand beat back the invading force of English soldiers, but he also sent for reinforcements to come help defend the bridge. Myles did battle for hours with his soldiers. They were under heavy attack, when Myles was almost done for from his wounds when his reinforcements arrived. This bit of history is being saved by Ireland's historical groups.

Within the Reilly family, my great uncle became John O’Reilly. Great uncle John’s own family started out with Della Reilly (no O), followed by John O’Reilly—with more to follow. All with O's.

One story goes that during the Troubles in Ireland, Bernard and John were here in America. They got stolen guns scheduled for destruction at the Armory in the Presidio. During the theft their wives participated, carrying gun within their long dresses. The guns were taken to a church were the serial numbers were lifted. Except a few slipped by, the law enforcement was on the case. The scheduled fall guy took the rap and went to prison at Leavenworth for 12 years. 

Then Great-uncle John moved his family to Los Angeles were he worked as a policemen. Great- grandpa and Grandma moved to Marin County full-time until everything mellowed out. 

Another story goes that John was fleeing the law in Ireland and needed to get out of the country undetected, so he changed his name. We'll never know.

Great-grandpa’s sister Ellen was a character. Early 1904 was when another migration from Ireland began. The stories are shadowy and Great-grandpa sent money to Ireland—100 dollars every three months. He worked for the Post Office for a few years, stable, but it didn’t pay that well. 

Probation forced our whiskey-loving family into strange occupations. Great-aunt Ellen became a brewer of hootch or bathtub gin. When the customers bought batches that were "a little stiff," the guys would be found around town. 

Great- grandma’s aunt Mae was in the family business of bathtub gin, the revenuers came busting things up. Aunt Mae was napping on the bed with some babies and the jugs hidden within her skirt. Unfortunately what signaled the law, was that the plumbing was a little full of mash.

Great-grandpa’s brother lived in Los Angeles and Hollywood was right there. So Great- uncle John was chosen for an episode of “This Is Your Life.” The brothers got together for the T.V. show in L.A. 

Great-great grandma Brigid Reilly was on her way from Ireland. When she landed in New York she was given prizes, luggage, refrigerators, and other trinkets. These trinkets never stayed with her, and never went back to Ireland. The Irish family still wants them to this day. She arrived in Los Angeles and they all did the T.V. thing. They hadn’t seen their mum since 1904-1910 or thereabouts. Here in the 1950s, they were able to see her, the families were able to meet.

Grandma’s memory of her grandmother was that she was a tiny lady. Grandma brought her grandmother some chocolates and she said, “Oh that women won’t let me have those, take them with you.” Great-great-grandmother was staying with Ellen and she was a “bag” who demanded respect and compliance from even her mother....

(Sadly the rest of this family history monologue as told from the point of view by a fictitious Nephew Sean, is lost, an ASCII rebellion? I don't know. But it does preserve some of the family stories in memoir format. I needed 20 informants for my folklore class, so young Sean became an extra informant. I later removed the extra generation, as it’s just too confusing. MH 11/2015)

WALSH folklore

WALSH

Walsh is a old Irish family name that refers to Welsh soldiers who were the troops that settled In Ireland after early invasion by Norman English troops. This happened around the 11th or 12th century. The Kings of this part of Ireland are Sullivans. The branch of our family is O’Sullivan Coom Beir.

I visited with my relatives in County, Longford and County Cork, Bantry, Ireland. I was able to meet my Great-great Aunt Mary Driscoll Walsh, as well as cousins from both great-grandparents.

Paddy Walsh was born in Ireland, he came to America as a young man. A pioneer of 1860s Nevada, he founded Home Ranch and supplied the miners of the Comstock in Virginia City, Nevada, with oats and grain, making more money than the miners ever did. The Reese River Valley was improved with the existence of Home Ranch.

Walshes dot the landscape in cemeteries and phone directories. He had two families during his lifetime, his beloved son died in a blizzard. He had two daughters, Julia and Mary (Marie)—one sister was not “all there,” the other was a genius. 

Mary was whisked out of school, was educated in Chicago and began working with “like minds.” For the next few decades, The Manhattan Project, became her life. The Hydrogen Bomb of WWII and all the testing and development affected her life, she died in the sixties of cancer.

Great-grandma’s aunt came to Ireland on a visit. My Great-grandma worked in Dublin as a tailor’s apprentice. Aunt Mae Walsh Forbes wanted her niece to come to America. Great-grandma said “yes” —only if her brother Joseph could come too. 

The family scheduled a passage on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. The ship was built in Belfast. Family plans changed her passage plans— “thank God.” The next ship they booked passage on was “The Baltic” which had a fire. The last voyage of the Lusitania to New York in June 1912 was their passage to America. 

They went through Ellis Island, trains were taken across America to Battle Mountain, Nevada and Galveston, Texas. Joseph took a boat around the tip to save some money. Great-grandma went on to Battle Mountain, Nevada, then she took a stage to Austin. Great-grandma always enjoyed her time at Home Ranch with family. She traveled to Home Ranch often on vacations from her domestic service in San Francisco.

When my grandmother was a little girl of 5 or 6, she was home, making chocolate on the stove. She lit the stove with a match and threw it into the wood box. The kitchen caught fire and destroyed the room, but the house was saved. Great-grandma was upset. 

When Great-grandpa got home, she told him the story. Grandma was expecting Great-grandpa’s anger, instead he handed her a Hershey bar and said nothing about the damage.

SANTOS folk narrative

SANTOS FAMILY FOLKLORE as if told by Jimmy's grandson, Sean

(We pieced this family folklore together while we were in the Azores, and I added bits to it right after we returned. It's a story for my 1st cousin once removed, Sean Dinsmore, who was a child at the time. Now Sean is 21. I transcribed the folklore as if told from Sean's point of view, so he would have a family record for later. (I was taking a monologue class at the time....I did one for each family name. I was planning to use them in a monologue in several voices, since I couldn't use them for my folklore class.)

At the time, I was desperate to fill my required 40 bits of collected folklore for my anthropology professor, Dr. Alan Dundes' folklore class at UC Berkeley, and this unexpected piece came out of the collecting process. 

My informants were my aunt Canice, who was married to Jimmy Santos, and her daughter, my cousin, Sinead Dinsmore, who was Jimmy's step-daughter. So it all came from second-hand informants. I wasn't sure how to clarify the information from two sources.  It was disjointed, Sinead and Canice would begin a story, we'd be interrupted, then, out of the blue, hours or days later, they'd finish the story.

Alan Dundes said he only wanted first-hand informants, in their own authentic language structure, replete with hem-haws, ahems, and warts. So I wasn't able to use this piece. Then I changed the story, to be read as if told from Sean's point of view. I have the original fragments in my journals, but they are fragments, not contiguous.

How I collected the stories: We were traveling together, over a period of a month, In September, right after 9/11. The fragments were collected in San Francisco, Boston, Azores, London—in hotel rooms, boats, and planes. The stories are fragments, as they were always interrupting each other. A tape recorder would've come in handy. Or not. Canice was on a pilgrimage to the land of Jimmy's ancestors, in the Azores.

Canice and Sinead were the ones Jimmy told these stories too. And my cousin David, too (I've never collected his Jimmy stories). I heard a few stories too at Thanksgiving dinners. Sadly, Jimmy (James J. Santos in the story) never met his grandson Sean. Jimmy died too soon, at the age of 54, in the 1990s, of heart failure, though his heart was big.

I never finished writing this piece. There were a lot more stories that I didn't capture—Jimmy in Mill Valley, and working in Sausalito, etc. Sinead still tells a few Jimmy stories, and I always mean to write them down, but I never do. If I wasn't trying to upload and post-date my old writing for this blog, this piece might have languished in cyberspace forever. Several of my old files from 2000 are corrupted, with bits missing. This blog is an attempt to rescue old files.

Regardless of how this memoir was captured, and transcribed, it does chronicle the times. The story was as true as I could make it. A record for the future. And now that that little boy I traveled to the Azores with, Sean, has a son, Jameson, perhaps it's time to give Sean this small piece of his past, now that he's a father, himself. —MH 11/20/2015)

As if told by Sean Dinsmore:

Great-grandpa John J. Santos and great-grandma Bernice D. Santos were new parents to my grandpa, James J. Santos. Great-great grandma Desalla didn’t approve of how her grandson was being cared for. She took it upon herself to whisk James home to her house. He lived with his grandparents until he was ready for school. 

One day his mother decided it was time, and brought him home. His grandmother would be an important figure in his growing up. He often went fishing with his Uncle James and played in Sausalito amongst the boats. His father took his favorite car and sold it without his permission, because Great-grandpa needed the money. This bothered James for the rest of his life, so he supported his sons when they bought their first cars.

During the Big Fire on Mount Tam in the ’40s, Grandpa told stories. How his father worked on the Fire Crew and all the men. The canteen service that worked the fire, the giant amount of food they served. Grandpa was a small child and the portions of steak and chicken were huge massive servings. These men worked long and dangerous hours that seemed longer and they were filled with emotion. This was a defining memory of his childhood.

Great-uncle Jimmy was a fisherman during his youth, and when he was older, he took men sport fishing. The sea was his environment and he fished and worked the sea his whole life. He lived in Mill Valley with Sally in his parents’ house where Great-great-grandma lived. Stories of Grandpa coming home from school crying and sad because the kids were mean. Great-uncle Jimmy telling James to stick-up for himself.

The next day he came home with a smile on his face. The story is that Grandpa James didn’t back down from the bullies and so his battle was over. Grandpa had problems with discrimination his whole life because he was dark, not black but not pure white. So kids who didn’t know him would think wrong thoughts. Adults that he worked with often mistook his ancestry and assumed it wrong.

The Azore Islands is were my great-great-grandpa was from. The Azore Islands were discovered in the 14th century by the Portuguese and Europeans. My mother and grandmother and godmother went with me to the Azores a few years ago. When we were there, we saw volcanic rock beaches. The landscape is similar to Ireland with fields marked with stone fences. We saw a farmer riding his donkey from the corn field with the fresh corn under his bottom. 

The Soares and Bettencourts and Desallas are names in my family tree. My father John, and uncle James would fit right in with their dark hair and eyes, though they're half-Irish. My father John, is very tall—6’5,” and for his heritage, he’s a little big—with size 15 shoes, a little hard to find. 

After the Azores, we went to Lisbon, and to Fatima, a religious site. Then we went to London, England, and stayed in Maidenhead. In “Harry Potter” they show the train station Mom and Grandma took me through. We visited Buckingham Palace and Westminister Abbey as well as Harrod’s department store. The lemonade was very expensive.

Rooster sacrifice, Oakland

Rooster sacrifice, Oakland. I was awakened at 4 AM by a rooster outside on the 3rd floor balcony. It felt like I was home, I slept deeper yet. Wait. Roosters in Oakland? I grew used to the sound. On the third morning, someone screamed, for chrissakes kill it, then, silence. I watched in horror, as the shadows played out on the wall, more real than the act itself. The Ethiopian woman was singing, she raised the chicken up to the rising sun, and the  twisted its neck. Then, a deft slice, to let it bleed out in an enamel pan for Sunday dinner. An unseasonable snowstorm of feathers drifts down from the balcony.

Folklore: Too many babysitters

Genre: Proverb, Russian 

Renee Perelmutter female, age 25
UC Berklely linguistics student
born in L’Vov, Ukraine
Russian-Israeli-English-speaking
Oct 20, 2001
UC Berkeley, Dwinelle Hall

Y CEM HEK T  bE3   T A3Y
(u simi nynak ditya biz ghlazó)
To seven babysitters [a] child without eye
Too many people doing things, it goes wrong.

Renee, a UC Berkeley linguistics student is from Israel (her parents moved there from the former USSR in the 1980s ). She first remembers overhearing her parents use this proverb when she was about six years old when they still lived in L’Vov, Ukraine. 

She said it meant that when two many people are doing the same thing, it goes wrong. Like having too many baby-sitters. She said she overheard it from her mother. “My parents were probably discussing work or something.” Renee added that Russians are always using lots of proverbs, and especially half-proverbs in order to describe all sorts of conditions. It is very typical.

I think a possible cognate proverb might be, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” Cooks/baby-sitters are both servants, too many of them doing their job spoils the outcome—the job they were trained to do. 

There is also the nuance suggested that petty officials, insecure with their lack of power, all compete to try and run the show, to disastrous results—a common occurrence in Russia. 

In Archer Taylor & Bartlett Jere White’s “American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, 1820-1880,” (Harvard, 1958), I found: “There are so many cooks the broth must always come out rather bad.” (33, Smith, “Downing,” 167); and, “If five cooks can spoil the broth, what may not five captains do with a pleasure excursion.” (Clemens/Twain, “Innocents,” 1 20). (p 79).

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

At the Bob Dylan concert

We are standing in line waiting, hoping to get into the Bob Dylan concert. A last minute decision. We decide to join Vito and Connie but we have no tickets. Freddie, a parole officer, joins in the search. We are so many, we are circling the entire block of the Bill Graham Theater. We stand next to four buses idling, and are overwhelmed by the sooty odor of diesel. We know that Dylan is inside one of those dark buses. The buzz grows. 

The 20-somethings in the crowd may have tickets, but aren’t too sure who Dylan is. Neil works the crowd. Scalpers galore. Prices are through the roof. But he is optimistic. He works his magic, and finds one ticket at price halfway around the block. Final stretch into the auditorium and we still don’t have a second ticket. He scores one ticket at the box office, and a second ticket in the street, and bingo we’re in. It was so stressful. 

We are up in the rafters. The place is jammed. Blue light. Everyone is lighting up. It smells like the 1960s. The 20-somethings are rocking out, what’s the connection? This is their parent’s music. 

It was so strange to see Dylan in his maroon country and western leisure suit, opening with the Patsy Cline-ish cowboy songs. The concert was a musical pistache of R & B rock ‘n’ roll, swing, bluegrass—a progression of styles. He must’ve had a bank of a dozen guitars lined up for each nuance of the set. Shenandoah, nostalgic Civil War song reminds us of where we’ve been. I think of the juxtaposition of song, and war, and flag. No discourse, but the lyrics of the songs build on a political statement, ending with the antiwar songs. 

Dylan is still going strong at 60, a most dedicated performer. The music goes beyond his personality. Beyond his voice. But we don’t care. He sings I’ll be your baby tonight. Everyone knows the words. And they sing along with the times, they are a changing. Blowing in the wind. He brings down the house with Imagine. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Weird to think that about the time that Dylan became Christian, Cat Stevens became Muslim.

Someone lights up. You know what the next song is going to be. Everybody let’s get stoned. The audience lights up, right on cue—myriad red dragon eyes, or fireflies surround us. We are all stoned, It can’t be helped, we’re one giant contact high. Women throw bouquets of roses and scream, We love you Bob. I’m not a huge fan, but I get into the groove. They stone you when you’re playing your guitar. He changes the words to lyre. We giggle. It’s practically a karaoke club. His dozen guitars light up the night. 

Blue-eyed sons, all bald, now. No reprieve from the ravages of time. Neil is singing blowing in the wind under his breath. The only way to recognize some of the tunes is by the guitar chord progression. I’m thinking of rainy day women, hard rain, and blue-eyed sons. Today is not an endless highway, but we’re rocking in the balcony in unison. There must be some kind kind of way out of here, because the times they are a changing. 

As we leave the building the exit is a caracol, a human chain-snail oozing down the stairs. The bus screams, four more decoy buses pull out. Suddenly I know which bus Dylan is in. I flagellate Neil, telling him to run. I know where the bus will stop. Don’t ask me how I know, I just now. Call it newshound savvy. It’s all about timing. We run across the street and damned if the the bus doesn’t stop right in front of us. The impossible, possible, the improbable, probable. Bob Dylan opens the window, sticks his hand out and shakes our hands. Neil won’t wash his hands for the next year.