Tag Archives: michigan

Dutch/Tulip Festivals Supporting Schools in Redlands, California (and Related Rhyme/Song)

Informant Context:

Meryl is a descendent of Dutch immigrants who immigrated to America around the 1850s. After living in Michigan, she relocated to Redlands, California, where she attended and later taught at a school supported by the Christian Reformed Churches in the area. The school held annual Dutch/Tulip Festivals as fundraisers. Meryl participated in these festivals as a student. She went on to teach her students the associated songs, skits, etc. while working there.

The interviewer spoke with Meryl over the phone.

Transcript:

MERYL: So I grew up in Redlands—Redlands Christian School, attended um… Christian Reformed Church is where I—was where my parents went, and in Redlands there are two Christian Reformed Churches, one Reformed Church, and one Protestant Reformed Church, which is a little more on the Dutch, th—Dutch side. Uh, the Protestant Church also had a school. And so… Redlands… and I went to the Christian School there, and… all supported Red— of all those churches, the four churches, uh… supported the Redlands Christian School. Still do. And there were many Dutch background people, so they, um… in order to support the school they started having—I don’t know just when it started, but—uh, started having Dutch festivals. And I remember, uh, singing little songs, and… heh… at the, at the Dutch festivals. Um… and then, later I taught ‘em to… to… th—the kids that I was teaching. [rustles pages, reading] Um… many… let’s see… many Dutch background people had Tu—Tulip festivals to raise money for the school. ‘Cause they… [unintelligible] always need money. Um…

INTERVIEWER: What would the songs be about? 

MERYEL: Well, let’s see… Well, first of all they had all the… the chorale—you know, they’re kind of like *chorale*—they’re [unintelligible] you know, half notes. [rustles pages] And uh… other songs. But it… the for Tulip Festival. I taught my kids this one little ditty that… [begins laughing] Heh-heh! It was—let’s see, it was… [begins speaking in rhythm (no melody), puts on an accent (t’s and th’s become d’s)]

“Katrina, my darling,

Come sit by my side 

And I’ll told you some things 

That will open your eyes—eyes [unintelligible]

I love you so much 

[Bette(?)]… w—with the love that I got,

That I want… and I’m going to ask you, “Won’t you be my *frau*?”

Frau is like… um, [unintelligible]. She would sing—the girl would sing: [resumes]

Why [seen(?)] yourself, Charlie 

To speak out like that 

Although it is nice what you say, 

And I love you so much with the love that I got

That I’ll be your frau right away.

Oh, ja! [thought that was(?)] fine, 

Char—Katrina, she told me she’s going to be mine… 

And, you know, that’s the chorus. Yeah, heh—*anyway*… and the kids would sing. I taught that to my… my 4th graders later. Um… anyway… 

INTERVIEWER: Did you teach at the same school?

MERYL: Uh, yeah, I’m getting to that. [laughs] Y—Y—let’s see… [if(?)] I can read it [reading] all—so all these churches, these four churches, supported the Redlands Christian School. Many Dutch background people… uh… had, had decided to have a Tulip Festival to bring in money for the school, ‘cause the schools always need money. And uh… so they, uh, they… the *women* mainly, got together [laughs softly], And um… k—kinda started when, when I was in school there. And it’s been kind of a tradition. And later, um… it was still going on when I taught there. Um… they had um… they had uh, uh… dishes of, *food* dishes, and cookies, and all kinds of stuff that was Dutch, and the kids would dress up, or… in uh, long skirts and wear, uh, Dutch—gif you had Dutch shoes, the wooden shoes…

INTERVIEWER: Clogs?

MERYL: [Me and(?)] my parents, they sent for some Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they have… uh, and Holland, Michigan, where they have more Tulip Festivals and… a lot of tulips in Holland. 

INTERVIEWER: Right, so… that’s what I was going to ask. So this specific one that you’re talking about is just the Redlands one, but I was…

MERYL: [Yes(?)]

INTERVIEWER: I was going to ask you are there other ones? 

MERYL: Oh, [yeah(?)]

INTERVIEWER: Other Tulip Festivals around the US? And it sounds like Holland Michigan, there are…

MERYL: Yeah, yeah… and [El Far(?)] California, they have a—a lot of Dutchman there too. 

INTERVIEWER: And they have similar festivals and everything.

MERYL: Yes. The Christian schools do.

INTERVIEWER: But this one was… 

MERYL: Yeah, they… they kind of support the Dutch background. 

INTERVIEWER: Oh, so—so it’s always attached to a school, it sounds like? It’s less of like… like a… 

MERYL: Yeah, it’s—it’s mainly I th—uh, yeah it kind of supports the schools. Helps to support the schools. Uh… Dutch costumes, [rustles papers] and wooden shoes… the wooden shoes are very uncomfortable.

INTERVIEWER: [laughs]

MERYL: You wear about three pairs of socks inside ‘em just so… so you don’t get blisters. I had some. I don’t know where they went. Heh-heh… 

INTERVIEWER: [joins laughing]

MERYL: *Anyway*… 

Informant Commentary:

Meryl mainly connected these festivals to the religious and educational institutions they supported financially. The generations through which this folk practice is passed are not familial generations or ethnic ones, but rather teacher to student generations. Meryl occupied both of those roles, as a student who later became a teacher. The Dutch/Tulip Festivals are also sites of other folklore such as folk songs and folk food, similarly passed down using highly intentional means, for a specific purpose, in a designated classroom setting.

Analysis:

This tradition is an interesting one, mainly because it employs folklore as a means to fundraise for an institution. This conflicts with the usual role of folklore as a set of artistic practices coming into being and perpetuating outside of institutions. The folklore invoked by these festivals (clogs, traditional dress, songs, etc.) likely came about that way too, but were given a new purpose and a new folk group by these majority Dutch churches and schools.

Don’t Walk on the Michigan M

Background: 

My informant, AK, is a 19 year old student at the University of Michigan. She was born and raised in Southern California and is studying engineering. While in high school, AK was an active member and team captain of her school’s swim team. She attended the school from kindergarten until she graduated and knew the place inside and out. (I’ll be referring to myself as SW in the actual performance).

Performance: 

AK: At Michigan, we have this huge letter M in the center of campus. And the rule is, like, if you step on it, you fail your first blue book exam. It’s like at any other college.

SW: I’ve never heard that before.

AK: Really? Yeah, it’s like a big deal here. And apparently the only way to reverse it, is to like run from the clocktower one side of campus, to the other side, and then back to the clocktower and get there right as it chimes midnight. And you have to be naked the whole time. But that’s impossible because the clocktower doesn’t chime past 10pm, and it’s illegal to be naked. So it’s best to just not step on the M in the first place and avoid the bad luck all together.

Thoughts:

While I was not familiar with this specific superstition, I know most schools have some sort of similar superstition in circulation. A lot of them have to do with disgracing or disrespecting the school or campus in some way, which then brings bad luck in the form of bad grades or other things. I’m guessing these came to be as a way of keeping respect for the school. I think there’s something alluring, too, about feeling like you’re in on something. You feel special when you know your school’s superstitions, because you feel like a true member of the institution, and not an outsider. 

The Hunt for the Melonheads

Description

“There’s this really interesting thing about St. Joseph, MI, this thing about Bridgeman, the neighboring city. So, there’s this, uh, story about the “melonheads.” There’s this Cook Nuclear Plant between the cities, which is one of the only ones in the area. Very high restricted, obviously because there’s nuclear shit in there. Very, very high security. There’s this rumor, this old story, that way back in the 50s or something there was an acid leak from the plant and this acid leak affected a bunch of people from Bridgeman, where it demented their heads. The people became outcasts, aka the “melonheads,” they went to live amongst the woods.

So, what people do is that they go on hunts for the melonheads. It’s this fun thing that teenagers do, and I’ve never been, but I’ve been asked to go. They go to the depths of the Cook plant. You’re supposed to turn off your car with your lights on. You’re supposed to howl in the night. Apparently, the melonheads will come to your car and kill you. People swear they’ve seen the melonheads. Usually, people tell this story when they’re attempting to be “scary” or share creepy stories. It was told to me when I was hanging out with my other friends, drinking beer and hanging out outside somewhere. Everyone thought it would be great fun to hunt for them, but I didn’t want to go, so we didn’t.”

Context

The informant would hear of this story when engaging with other teenagers, back when the informant was a teenager. Typically, this story would be shared when teenagers gathered in groups and the informant first heard of it when their friends attempted to get the informant to partake in the “hunt.”

Analysis

Like most stories that teenagers tell each other, I believe something like this would be used as perhaps a sort of group “initiation,” or something to use to scare each other. It feels like a Michigan-specific Bloody Mary story, something teenagers would do when they are bored or want to see who is the bravest. I engaged in many such games when I was younger, sort of playing “chicken” with these weird stories and legends. I would also make a guess that the idea of the melonheads was created as a way to possibly ward people off from visiting the nuclear plant.

 

Euchre – A Michigan Game

Item:

R: Euchre, in fact, uses a subset of a deck of cards.  It only uses cards 9 through Ace, or I guess Ace then 9 through King.  But ah, you play.. by.. ah, it’s like- it’s like Hearts or Spades where there’s the trump suit.  But uh, when you play, oh and everybody, uh uh, there’s- has five cards in their hand, and you do five different tricks where everybody plays down one card.  I’m sure it’s similar to Peaknuckle, and Hearts, Spades, other ones.  One of the suits is trump, and the way that that suit becomes trump is very Euchre way of making it, I think.  Maybe it’s similar to Peaknuckle.  One of the weird things about Euchre is that the Jacks, are the highest cards in the game.  Usually, in a game of cards, either the Aces are the lowest or the Aces are the highest and then Kings are the highest or the second highest.  But in Euchre, the Jack of trump is the highest card and the Jack of the same color off suit of trump is the second highest card, so there’s that extra thing to remember.  Ah, and thereafter all the other cards of the trump follow as you would expect: Ace, King, Queen, 10, 9.  Then you keep track of your score on the five cards.  First team to get ten points wins.  You get one point if you take a majority of tricks in a hand.  Two points if you take all the tricks in the hand, or you take the majority of tricks in the hand but the other team called trump.  You get, ah, four points if you go alone and you let your partner not do anything at all.  You get eight points if you go alone when the, ah, other team called trump. And you win still, because you Euchre’d them.  To “Euchre” someone means to beat them when they called trump.  But.. ‘cause when they call trump, they get the advantage of being able to pick up an extra trump card, or they get the advantage of knowing what’s in their hand should be better toward that trump.  If they called trump, and you still beat them, they were fools!  They made a terrible mistake and misread their hands.

Q: Sorry, could you explain trump again?

R: Trump is a system in cards where that suit mysteriously beats the other suits for no particular reason.  It’s like, it’s like white supremacy, there’s no real good reason for it, but for some reason white people beat other people at things.  In Euchre, every time you play a new hand, ah, you.. every hand, the trump gets redecided.  The trump is a suit of cards.  So, in one hand it might be spades, the next hand it might be hearts, and somebody who’s brave and thinks they could do well with that trump calls that trump.  Usually what happens is the dealer deals out cards, and then the dealer flips over one of the remaining four cards, ‘cause you don’t deal out four of the cards, otherwise people would be able to count cards and you don’t want that.  So, flip over one of the cards, that card is up for grabs as the trump suit.  The person to the left of the dealer goes first and says either they want to pass, or they ask the dealer to pick up that card.  If they ask the dealer to pick up that card, that suit become trump, the dealer puts that card in their hand and puts a different card down on the table, face down and puts those and the other cards to the side.  That’s how trump is decided. But if nobody tells the dealer to pick it up including the dealer doesn’t want the card they flipped over, they don’t want that card to be trump, the dealer flips that card over and then you go in the circle, and from the left of the dealer around, you can choose any suit as trump, except for the one you flipped over.  If nobody picks it, then the dealer is screwed.  It’s a move called screw the dealer, and the dealer has to pick the trump.   Even if they have no chance of winning with anything.  You play in pairs, the dealer is one member of the pair.  It’s a four-person game, and uh, the dealer rotates around.  You rotate the dealer around in the circle.

 

Context:

I picked up Euchre while hanging out with a group of friends from the University of Southern California and we all began to talk about games from our childhoods or where we grew up.  Two members of this group were from Michigan, but one of them did not know the game, explaining how she’s had people assume she knew the game because she was from Michigan.  She talked about how if someone knows the game Euchre, and knows that someone else is from Michigan, it’s a good possibility that the person knows how to play it.  She also explained that you would pick the game up from family or friends in a social setting.  The other informant did not entirely grow up in Michigan, but did know how to play and explained the game in great detail above.

 

Analysis:

Euchre is a prominent example of how a particular piece of knowledge is tied to a certain locale, in this case, the state of Michigan.  It is also an example of how something like a game shared from person to person amongst a group creates or reinforces a certain identity.  Euchre serves as a very obvious identifier of who comes from Michigan.  The significance of the relationship between Euchre and Michigan is evidenced by how the female informant explained that everyone assumes she knows the game because she’s from Michigan.  She does, in fact, know of the game, but she does not know how to play.  To some others from the state, it may seem like she is not truly a Michiganian.  Since Euchre is primarily a Michigan thing, learning it may also be a method of assimilating into the state culture.  In the case of the male informant, he actually lived in Maryland before moving to Michigan.  As such, he turned from an outsider to an insider by learning how to play, becoming a Michiganian himself.  There appear to be no rules about sharing Euchre outside of Michigan, alluding towards openness in the state culture because there is not any exclusivity.  In this particular case, the informant’s willingness to share the game with others outside of Michigan allowed them to partake in the state’s culture when they otherwise would not have had a chance to.

 

Additional Informant Information:

The data of the male informant, ‘R’, who explained the gameplay of Euchre is in the section above the item.  The same information is provided for the other informant below.

‘S’ – Nationality: USA; Age 29; Occupation: Ph.D. Student; Residence: Los Angeles, CA; Primary Language: English; Other Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew

Snow Day Ritual

Description

“You would hear there was a snow coming, a big storm, and in order to secure the snow day, you would do the pre-snow day ritual. What you would do is wear your pajamas backwards, then flush three ice cubes down the toilet. While the ice cubes were being flushed you would chant ‘I love snow days.’ The ice needed to be gone, your pants needed to be backwards, and then you had to do it until the ice cubes were gone. If it worked, you were a genius, and if it didn’t work, you were pretty stupid.”

Context

The informant reported that in Michigan, where they are from, snow days are incredibly important to school culture. This ritual would be used when the informant was in school, usually in the winter, to attempt to secure a snow day, which involved shutting down school for a day due to inclimate weather.

Analysis

A lot of students have been heard of doing this — I had similar snow day rituals that the students believed, often well into high school. I find this sort of thing very cool because where does it come from? At what point, after the invention of the modern school day began, did something like this start, and how did it become customary for students? My own personal idea is that it comes from other rituals to ward off evil, but is a children’s bastardization of that idea, creating their own.