- “Here’s one that my uncle always used to tell my mom, um it’s “Money is like manure- it’s no good unless it’s spread around.” – the backstory is that my uncle was one of the most giving guys around. Everyone in New Jersey loved him, as a kid he would go through his parents wallets and take twenty dollar bills and go to Del Mar (which is a slummy part of New J ersey ) and leave twenty dollar bills on people porches.”
- My friends uncle used this proverb to justify his legendary generosity. I Googled the phrase and found that the proverb has been attributed to many great thinkers and business men, in many different forms. I found a variation of the proverb listed in Raymond Lamont Brown’s “A Book of Proverbs” (Taplinger Publishing Company, New York, New York) on page 121- “Money, like manure, does no good till it is spread.” The book was published in 1970, so the proverbs has been in American circulation at least since then.
Author Archives: Margaret Admire
Lamb Cake
- “For Easter my mom has to make a lamb cake every year because it’s what my Grandma wants her to do. It’s a tradition that the Monge women have to make a lamb cake every Easter and it’s one of those things you have to do cuz your mother-in-law makes you do it and it’s the ugliest thing ever and my mom agrees but she still does it… I won’t have to do it because I’ll have a different married name. It’s only if you marry into the family.”
- This is an example of a tradition solely because it’s a tradition, while disliked by those who participate. Apparently no one in my friend’s family enjoys the lamb cake, but the grandmother bullies her daughter-in-law into making it every year because it’s a their traditional cultural foodway for Easter. It probably has something to do with Jesus Christ being known as the “lamb of God” or the sacrifice that saved humanity from sin. It also might have to do with fertility.
Crazy Peacock Guy
- “This story was definitely changed by children trying to make it scary… There was a guy who lived a few houses down from my friend. In Palos Verdes we have a lot of peacocks; that’s like our animal, the peacock. She had heard that he would kidnap the peacocks and place them in cages in his house and that he was arrested for doing so. He was definitely arrested for something, but I don’t know if that was real. He like was crazy.”
- A local legend which circulated among children in Palos Verdes, California, in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. The man certainly existed, but whether or not he kept illegal pet peacocks and was crazy is questionable.
Theatre Energy Circle
“Before every show, we do an “energy circle” where we start by joining hands and sending a pulse around. Then when we feel everyone is ready, someone starts a hum that we all join in on. It builds until we all open our mouths to a yell and basically let all our energy explode vocally. The purpose is to center the energy as a group instead of just individually.”
Collected from a freshman Theatre student at Santa Fe University of Art and Design. She said the students there have lots of rituals passed on to freshmen during their first year, and no one knows how they started, they just do them to make the shows better. In my experience, theatre students are very superstitious about what preparations will create a good show or not.
Ghost Lamp Superstition
“Second, we have, much like most theatres, a ghost lamp that stays on at all times. The original purpose of a ghost lamp was to protect any from gas leaks that may have occurred throughout the night by igniting it before a stagehand had a chance to get in the building and do it in the morning (It destroyed the theatre, but no one was in it at least). Now, we just use it as a superstitious way of keeping things well within the theatre when everyone’s away.”
This superstition apparently is in practice at many theatres, as two other friends also mentioned it during their interviews. they, however, were less eloquent in their descriptions, but basically said it’s a light left on the stage that used to be for safety and is now just superstition. In my questioning, no one was able to explain why it’s called the “ghost” lamp, since no ghost seems to be involved. Perhaps it is supposed to be a light for the ghosts in the theatre?