Author Archives: Cole Garrett

Brick Wall Waterfall

My informant is a 20-year-old College Student. She has a predominantly Polish heritage.

My informant gave me a children’s song that she remembers very vividly from when she was very young. The song goes as follows:

“Brick wall waterfall (insert person’s name) thinks he/she knows it all,
but you don’t and I do, so poof with that attitude. No peace punch captain crunch I got something that you can’t touch, bing bang choo choo train wind me up and I’ll do my thang, no Reese’s Pieces seven up, mess with me and I will mess you up”

Informant: “Kids would chant this on the playground if someone was being mean or annoying to them. It’s what they would say as like a sassy remark. As someone who got made fun of a lot I would use this quite often because I was too scared to try to be clever so it was my go-to response”

Analysis: This piece is interesting because it shows how children in their youth deal with such instances like being made fun of. In order to combat these mean kids, my informant had learned this “defense song”. A few interesting things about this song are that the song reflects someone who is strong willed. They portray themselves as someone who will “mess you up” if they overstep their boundaries. At the same time there are multiple references to popular culture like seven up and Reese’s Pieces.

Polish Christmas

My informant is a 20-year-old College Student. She has a predominantly Polish heritage.

I asked my informant if she had any Polish traditions, rituals, or festivals that she could tell me about. She decided to tell me about a Polish tradition that relates to Christmas time. It is normal for people who celebrate Christmas to open their presents Christmas morning, however, in Polish tradition, they skew from this norm and have created their own tradition.

Informant: “Growing up we never opened our Christmas presents on Christmas morning. We opened them Christmas Eve when the first star appeared in the sky because it is Polish tradition. I don’t know if there is any story behind it, I was never told one, but it is something that we do every year. I know that my relatives do the same thing and I have heard of a lot of other Polish people who do the same thing. My grandmother on my mom’s side had to run from Nazis and her whole family had to endure a lot of pain and struggles. I think this part of my family’s heritage is difficult for my mom to talk about. Because of this she does not know a lot of her own heritage but we do this for Christmas as more of an homage to my grandma”

Analysis: This piece is interesting because it gives a new take on a traditional religious custom. Religious customs seem like things that are concrete, but this is not true. There is nowhere in the Bible that states that presents must be opened or that Christmas is a holiday in general where people get presents. If we think of it in this sense, Christmas does allow for a lot of multiplicity and variation depending on where you come from. It is also interesting that although the custom is thought of as Polish, my informant’s family does not do it to celebrate their own Polish ethnicity, more than it is an homage to the a person who was Polish in their family. The tradition celebrates the person more than the ethnicity.

Awkward Turtle

My informant is a 20-year-old College Student. She has a predominantly Polish heritage.

I was interested in asking my informant if she knew about any specific gestures that she had learned over the years that had some significance to her. She could not think of any with any real special significance, but she did inform me about the “awkward turtle”.

Informant: “Awkward turtle is just for awkward situations. When something awkward happens, you throw up the awkward turtle. You just put one hand flat on the other and wiggle your thumbs like turtle fins. I first saw it when I was at a battle of the bands in Toledo, Ohio. One of the drummers of a band dropped his stick and screwed up the whole song. They ended up having to stop playing and the lead singer was like, “ooh awkward turtle”, and did the gesture. The whole crowd then put their “hand turtles” in the air and did it with him. It was really weird because I was left out of this weirdness but I quickly put my hands up and conformed even though I had no idea what was going on. I still use the turtle today, it’s really funny for situations that are awkward because you don’t have to say anything, you just make the awkward turtle and other people catch onto it.”

Analysis: This piece is really interesting because of the way that the informant learned about it. She was in a large crowd and she only did it because she was mimicking what everyone else was doing. I think this says something about our society as Americans. We want to be grouped together and we are such social creatures that acceptance is the main goal. Even when we don’t know what we are doing, we go with the crowd so we don’t stand out. My informant was on the outside of this knowledge circle until she made her own awkward turtle and then she was inside the circle of this shared knowledge.

Sore Throat Remedy

My mother seems to know a remedy for everything when it comes to being sick. She always has some kind of alternative medicine solution to these problems. She doesn’t always implore me to use them, but she gives me the option. I asked her what as one thing she learned from her mother in regards to alternative medicine. She told me a trick for sore throats that involves vinegar cider.

Informant: “My mother grew up in the 60’s, so her parents were all about these hippy recipes. She knew so many ways to cure anything and that’s where I get all this stuff. When we would have a sore throat, she would tell us to gargle this vinegar cider. We would gargle it over the toilet and it was disgusting. The worst part was that she made us swallow the last sip. I never made you or your brothers do it because although sometimes it worked, it is just ridiculous, I think a cough drop is the equivalent these days, so feel like you’re sucking on a cherry candy rather than gargling vinegar cider.”

Analysis: This piece is interesting because this type of folklore is diminishing quickly. With modern medicine becoming so popular and advancing so rapidly, these types of remedies will soon disappear. It is also interesting that my mother only knows all of these recipes because my grandma grew up in a specific time where these types of remedies were almost more widely used that pharmaceuticals. It may only be a few generations until this fully disappears because I know that I will not be making my children use any of these types of alternative medicine when they are sick.

Yugoslavian Strudel Recipe

My Grandmother is 76 years old and she is predominantly Yugoslavian and Spanish. She has lived her whole life in the United States.

My grandmother’s mother was very Yugoslavian, she came over to this country from Yugoslavia when she was a young girl. With her she brought many of the recipes that she learned from her hometown. My grandmother is a very good cook and loves to bake, so the first piece of folklore she could think of was a recipe for strudel that her mother taught her how to make.

Informant: “I learned how to make it from my mother and she learned from hers and so on, who knows how long it has been in the family, but it’s damn good. You make it with really thin dough and the other ingredients can be variables, but it always has cinnamon sugar. She could make it so thin and then would cut it into pieces and then bake them until they were perfect golden brown. I am telling you it is the best thing you would ever taste. I still don’t think I can make it like her, there is something about the way that your mother makes something that is almost impossible to recreate. She would always make the strudel on Sundays because she didn’t like going to church so it was sort of her way out. I always go to church but because she always made it on Sundays, Sunday is the only time I ever make it. I don’t know why but it just doesn’t feel right if I made it on any other day. I guess it kind of celebrates her life in a way. I think about her whenever I make it and this recipe is something I hold very dear to my heart”.

Analysis: In many cultures, food is something that is very important. Culturally, a group of people can be known specifically for their specific types of food they make. It is one of the most important elements for the obvious reason that it keeps us alive, so whatever a culture is making, is important and becomes a part of their identity. The strudel represents a part of my grandmother and a part of her Yugoslavian heritage. It may seem a bit silly, but things like this can be very important to people because it helps them stay connected to their roots. Things like food create identity and bond people together who share this specific identity.