Author Archives: William Hiller

Joe College

My informant for this story is my friend.

In his family, dating back to his grandparents, though they were fairly poor and grew up during the Depression and were economically impacted, many members of the family went to college.  This was somewhat unique for the time period, specifically for the region and time they lived in.  Furthermore, many of the children went on not just to college or higher education, but to attain several degrees or terminal degrees.

Accordingly, it became sort of a rite of passage for each sibling to begin their college career and make the visits back home and participate in the other typical collegiate activities.  As each one got closer to go to college and was accepted, all the members of the family would start to call him “Joe College.”  My friend’s grandfather said he was never sure where the term originated or who first started saying it, but he was the oldest of his generation within the family and when he got towards the end of high school and was accepted into college, his parents, grandparents and his siblings began calling him “Joe College.”  It became something that each one went through, again, like a rite of passage.  When he had his own children, he did the same, as did each of his siblings and I remember when my friend got accepted to college, his grandfather called him “Joe College.”  I never knew why or what it meant exactly until I researched it for this assignment.

Beware Pregnancy Cravings

My informant for this story is my friend’s mother.

Everyone has heard that pregnant women have very powerful and often strange cravings.  For example, they may crave two totally different foods that they would ordinarily not want.  Whether it is because of hormones or chemicals that occur as a result of the pregnancy, it certainly seems to be true, at least based on what I have heard.  My mother’s friend used to tell a joke that “If you crave something while you’re pregnant and you don’t get it, the baby will be born with a birthmark of the item that the mother was craving and didn’t get.”

I have never heard this anywhere else, except in my friend’s family.  But I must admit that every time I see someone’s birthmark now, I examine it to try to discern what kind of food it most resembles and then imagine that person’s mother craving that food during the pregnancy.  For example, a friend of mine has a birth mark on her left fore arm that looks very much like a strawberry.  I have told her the joke and she thought it was very amusing.

Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child

The following proverb appears in the Bible:

Found in the book of Proverbs, which is a sort of collection of lessons or guidelines by which one should live their life, the proverb essentially means that it is important to be a good and attentive parent.  As the story explains, a good father takes the time to discipline his child and explain to him why his actions were wrong, eliminating the need for physical discipline.  A bad father, on the other hand, would only look to punish his child by spanking him or by other form of physical discipline.  This sort of behavior only alienates the child and drives a distance between father and child, whereas taking the time to teach the child has the dual benefits of sustaining the closeness of the relationship and sparing the child any physical harm.

Interestingly, my friend’s father would always jokingly reverse the saying, as a humorous way of reminding his son to stay in line.

Don’t Wear Pearls On Your Wedding Day

My informant for this story is my friend’s grandmother.

As I mentioned in another post, my best friend got married last year.  Prior to that experience, in which I served as best man, my experience with weddings was very limited, so I did not know much about them or what went on at them or any superstitions surrounding them.  One such thing about which I had never previously heard was a piece of folklore that warned against the bride wearing pearls on her wedding day.  I asked my informant what the reasons for this lesson was and she was unsure of its origin or exactly what it meant.  All she knew was that everyone in her family had always said it to any brides in on close to the family and they all said that wearing pearls on your wedding day would bring tears, presumably in the marriage.

I don’t think my friend’s wife ever planned to wear pearls at the wedding, but I am sure that if she had thought about doing so, the convictions with which her husband’s grandmother warned against wearing pearls, she would have chosen not to.  This, in my opinion, is a good example of a piece of folklore or superstition that has an unknown or little known origin that despite that fact, guides the decisions of people that have heard it so often.

Always Cut the End of the Ham Off Before You Cook It

My informant for this story is my friend’s grandmother.

My friend’s grandmother is a great cook.  She would often cook for us and going over to her house for a meal was one of my favorite things to do.  She would cook many different things.  On special occasions, she would cook a large ham, if there were going to be enough people there to eat it.  Almost every time she would cook a ham, either she or someone else in the family would remind her or ask her if she had cut the end off of the ham before cooking it.  This was sort of a running joke and I never thought much of it until after one meal, she was discussing the origin of the saying.  She had said that her husband’s mother, who taught her many of the recipes she still practices, had always told her to cut the end off the ham prior to cooking it.

It was years later before she realized that the reason they always said this was because they never had a pan big enough to accommodate cooking a ham with the end intact.  To this day, she laughs about this, having not known the reason for so many years.  She also mentioned it so many times to my friend and to me that I often think about this anytime I have ham or on holidays or other special occasions where a ham is being cooked.