Monthly Archives: March 2011

Joke

Nationality: German-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Leona Valley, CA
Performance Date: April 11, 2008
Primary Language: English

“What’s the difference between a black Jew and a white Jew?

The black Jew sits at the back of the oven.”

Caleb said that he heard this joke about two or three years ago from his older brother who also resides in Leona Valley, California.  Typically this joke is told in an atmosphere away from either people of African descent or Jewish people so it will not offend them.  Caleb said that he knows many other versions of Jewish and black jokes that he learned from his brother and from his friends in high school and college.  A joke such as this would typically arise on an occasion with a group of anywhere from two to five people, as it is something that shows racism and hatred, even in a joking manner.  Often the way that this specific joke in particular would be told is if a group is trading jokes either of a racial or denigrating manner.

Clearly, this joke refers to two separate points in history that dealt with the degradation of black and Jewish people.  The fact that the black Jew sits at the back of the oven refers to the fact that before racial laws were enacted in America, black people were often forced to sit in the back of the bus.  Also, the generalization of Jews being put into ovens refers to the ovens that were used to kill so many Jewish people during the Holocaust in the midst of World War II.  Although it has been a long time since either of these occurrences, the visible moment of the joke is hard to define, because of the fact that there is still racism that exists and the pain and suffering endured by these two groups were so great that it is hard for some people to find this type of joke funny, even if they recognize the context.

Like many jokes, this joke does have a punch line that reveals the cleverness of the teller.  After the original question is posed, the listener expects a dirty response, which the joke teller will wittingly express.  I believe that the reason the joke is told is not to necessarily make fun of Jewish or black people but instead is told to portray the wit of the one telling it.  Over time, it is been considered easy to make fun of Jewish or black people due to the fact that they have been suppressed so much that they are easy targets of jokes such as these.

It is possible that due to the fact that Caleb is of German descent that he possibly relates to his own heritage and the way that the German’s treated Jews during World War II.  However, as is customary in California and the United States in general, racism is a subject that is often shied away from because most people do not want to be judged as “racist” even if they are or are not.

Folk Belief – Massachusetts

Nationality: American
Age: 85
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Attleboro, MA
Performance Date: April 12, 2008
Primary Language: English

“Do not own or live with cats or they will smother your babies.”

This is a much older wives tale that my step-grandmother was insistent upon believing.  The act of smothering a baby is basically not allowing the child to breathe.  She repeatedly told my mother during my infancy that my mother should get rid of the cats that were living with us, because they would smother me.  Although my step-grandmother is getting older she was still able to tell me that she had heard this from her mother and grandmother during the time when she was young even before her pregnancy.  Ola grew up in the Burlington, Vermont area and spent most of her time between Vermont and Massachusetts, so presumably she probably heard this somewhere in that section of New England.

I believe that she felt so strongly about this belief because it was something that her mother and grandmother had instilled in her as a young girl.  When she told my mother, my mother thought she was crazy, however Ola still felt that she was 100% correct in saying that the cats would smother the baby.  I am not sure where the origin of this belief came about, but perhaps it was conjured out of pure fear of cats.  In addition, cats have often been associated with witches, magic, and sometimes evil, which could lead one to think that cats have some inherent wickedness to them.  In other märchen and superstition cats are usually mysterious or strange creatures, as exemplified by the well-known superstition that it is bad luck for a black cat to cross your path.

Rhyme – Conneticut

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Mystic, CT
Performance Date: March 14, 2008
Primary Language: English

“Mr. Simonchini had a ten-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only nine-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a nine-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only eight-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had an eight-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only seven-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a seven-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only six-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a six-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only five-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a five-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only four-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a four-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only three-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a three-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only two-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a two-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only one-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a one-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now he’s got a weenie no more!”

I used to sing this song in elementary school with my friends about our librarian named Mr. Simonchini.  We all sang it to make fun of him because he was a goofy looking guy and probably because he was an adult figure and an easy target.  We would often sing it on the playground or on bus rides to and from school, because nearly everyone in my class knew the song.  Usually it consisted of a few kids joking about a reading assignment that he would make us do and then one of us would bust into the song.  I do not remember how I learned this rhyme, but I do know that I learned it early on in my elementary school career, sometime in the mid 1990’s.  Every now and then we would change the words so that it was someone else who had the “ten-foot weenie” and sing it about them, however with the fortune of our librarian having such a name that so easily rhymed with weenie, we often reverted back to the original form.  Only my classmates and I would use the rhyme and we never sang it around adults so we wouldn’t get into trouble.

I believe that this rhyme basically was a form in which we could show our feelings towards our library teacher, that is that we believed him to be a pervert of sorts.  The fact that he is showing his weenie to a female neighbor and her getting scared gives the vibe that he is not welcome in her home and that he is meant to be portrayed as a creep.  Most children at this age found this funny and we would often laugh about the thought of our teacher showing off his family jewels to a neighbor, only, to have her cut it off.

This rhyme can also be seen as a way for children to become acquainted with the idea of separate sexes and become used to talking about a male’s private parts.  Children have different ways of learning about the opposite and same sexes and this song was most likely a form in which we could make fun of a teacher while also making a taboo reference to a penis.

Folk Game – Connecticut

Nationality: American
Age: 27
Occupation: Minor League Baseball Player
Residence: Groton, CT
Performance Date: March 23, 2008
Primary Language: English

“Ok so the way the game goes is first one person starts out by saying that they want to play snaps.  Then somebody chooses a category, we usually choose baseball players.  After that, the person thinks of the name of a player and begins the game.  The object of the game is for the person who has thought of the player to try to get the other people listening to guess the same player that teller is thinking of.  So the person who thinks of the player, ‘the teller’, begins by saying either ‘snaps is the name of the game’ or ‘snaps is not the name of the game’.  When snaps is the name of the game, that means the teller will spell out the person’s first name, and when snaps is not the name of the game that means the teller will spell out the person’s last name.  To spell out a name, the teller says a series of sentences in which the first letter of the first word of the first sentence gives the first letter of the person’s name, the first letter of the first word of the second sentence gives the second letter of a person’s name, and so on.  However, the catch is this is only used for consonants.  For vowels, the teller snaps his fingers: once for A, twice for E, three times for I, four times for O, and five times for U.  Usually this means that there is a scramble of sentences and snaps that form either the full first name or last name of the person that the teller is trying to get the audience to guess.  So as an example I will give you Roger Clemens when snaps is the name of the game and when it is not.  ‘Snaps is the name of the game.  Read books.  (Snap 4 times).  Go get it.  (Snap 2 times).  Remember everything I said.’  That would spell out R-O-G-E-R.  Hopefully the

person could guess that it was Roger Clemens given the category.   Here is how I would do Roger Clemens when snaps is not the name of the game.  ‘Snaps is not the name of the game.  Close your eyes.  Listen carefully.  (Snap 2 times).  Make sure you can hear me.  (Snap 2 times).  Notice my hands.  Stick with it.’  That would spell out C-L-E-M-E-N-S.  The teller must think of a name in the category that people would probably guess and use his best judgment when telling the name.”

I collected this game from one of my old assistant baseball coaches who I remember played snaps with us during bus rides and practice.  Usually there are some people who know how to play and some people who don’t know how to play.  It will often take listeners who have never played before at least a half hour to an hour before they can figure out the gist of the game.  Also, it is considered taboo to speak the rules, because that would be giving away the secret rules that everyone has had to figure out in the past.  Anybody can initiate a snaps game and usually after the teller has gone and a person has guessed it, someone else who knows how to play will start it up again and say a different person.

According to Mike, he learned this while playing minor league baseball for a Yankee’s farm team while in Canada.  What Mike has found is that snaps is popular across the baseball community and that he has found it being played in other groups as well.  He told me that everyone knew how to play on the team and that when rookies came to play on the team they would always be the target of the game.  Like many games, this folk game typically involved some people who know how to play, while others have to try to figure it out.  I believe the reason that snaps is such an addicting game is because when someone figures out how to play, all they want to do is try and stump the next person who wants to try and figure it out.

Legend – Connecticut

Nationality: French-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tolland, CT
Performance Date: April 27, 2008
Primary Language: English

“There are these creatures supposedly in Fairfield County in Connecticut called ‘Melon Heads’.  Apparently they were escaped inmates or insane asylum patients and they are rumored to have big bulbous heads.  There is this insane asylum in Fairfield that shut down a long time ago and supposedly the patients there kept inbreeding with one another until they became mutants of a sort.  They’re also kind of yellowish in color.”

Tanner told me that he learned this legend from one of his fellow students who lived down the hall from him in his dorm this year.  He even said that they drove to the insane asylum and found a large system of underground tunnels that had been abandoned years ago but no Melon Heads.  Tanner said that these creatures also are rumored to exist in other portions of southwestern and central Connecticut as well as some other midwestern state that he believed to be Ohio.  He also said that the student down the hall heard the story from another group of his friends from high school.   Tanner said that they are creatures that are feared for their mysteriousness and for the mere fact that nobody knows much about them.  As for the legitimacy of actual Melon Heads existing, he told me that he wasn’t sure whether to believe in them or not, but that he never actually saw one so he seems skeptical.

However, there is other evidence pointing to the existence of Melon Heads.  In the book Weird U.S. – Your Travel Guide to America’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets it mentions that Melon Heads supposedly exist in Connecticut, Ohio, and Michigan.  The book goes on to say that many of these Melon Heads were the result of science experiments gone wrong and radiation testing, leaving them mentally retarded and continuing to mutate on their own.  Supposedly, the Melon Heads then moved into the woods, where generations of inbreeding occurred, resulting in even more mutations.

I think that part of the reason that people fear the Melon Heads so much is because during their creation, it supposedly was regular humans that turned them into the way that they are, thus giving them an inherent hatred towards the common man.  There are other examples of creatures similar to Melon Heads that can be seen in such movies as “The Hills Have Eyes” in which creatures that have been inbreeding live in the hills of a western state such as Arizona.  This could be a variation to the legend, but it could also be the writer’s interpretation of the creatures themselves.

Annotation: Moran, Mark and Mark Sceurman.  Weird U.S. – Your Travel Guide to America’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets.   New York.  Sterling            Publishing Company. 2004.  pp 60-63.