Monthly Archives: May 2015

I’m A Frayed Knot

Nationality: USA
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 6, 2015
Primary Language: English

Joke:

“A piece of string walks into a bar. The bartender says “we can’t serve your kind here.” So the piece of string walks out, rolls in some dirt, and comes back inside. The bartender says “you just rolled in some dirt, you have to leave.” So the piece of string goes outside, rolls in the dumpster, ties itself in a knot, and goes back inside. He asks for a drink, and the bartender says “Sure what would you like? Wait a second… are you that piece of string from before?” and the piece of string says “No. I’m afraid not (a frayed knot).”

The informant was a nineteen year old female friend that I sat down with to chat. She was recounting events of the previous night where she told another mutual friend of ours a joke that apparently “took forever to tell.” I asked her to tell it to me, so she did. Afterwards, I asked who had told her that joke and she answered that it had been her English teacher from her sophomore year of high school. I mentioned that it was a pretty random thing to remember from a while ago and she commented on how much she liked this particular teacher and that that was probably why the lame joke had stuck with her for so many years.

If I had to analyze anything about this joke, it’d have to be the length of it. It seems way too long winded with not enough payoff, which may be the whole point of the joke in the first place. I believe it’s one of those things where the buildup is entirely unnecessary and is just there to annoy the other person. In that case, the joke did a very good job, because by the end of it I didn’t even care about the punch line anymore.

An old bull and a young bull

Nationality: American
Age: 68
Occupation: Waiter
Primary Language: English

“An old bull and a young bull are standing on a mountain. They look down below and see 20 cows in a nearby field. The young bull says to the old bull: ‘Hey, we should run down this mountain and do a couple of those cows down there.’ The old bull replies: ‘Or, we can walk down the mountain and do all of them’.

A subtle play on age difference, the punch line of this joke went right over my head the first time I heard it. I caught it the second time around. The joke seems to be highlighting the difference between an old person’s and a young person’s perspective. The young bull is eager to reach the cows, and suggests running to do “a couple”. The old bull seems to exemplify patience, and claims it would be better to walk if it meant doing “all of them”.

 

Christmas in Rural Tennessee

Nationality: American
Age: 86
Residence: Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Primary Language: English

Christmas in Rural Tennessee:

ME: All right, what can you tell me about what you did regularly for Christmas while you were growing up?

M.H.: Well, we were very poor, each one of us in our home, we had a chair that was just the right size for how big we were. So on Christmas morning, when we would get up, well I should say we would bring in a cedar tree and decorate it, and make homemade decorations like a paper chain, and stars, and stuff like that, because we didn’t have electricity. So, no Christmas lights, only from the fireplace. And then on Christmas morning our chairs would be around the fireplace, and of course, we didn’t have a lot of presents and anything like that, but we would always get something we wouldn’t normally get, like a banana, or an orange, or some kind of Brazil nuts.

ME: Something that would be considered a luxury.

M.H.: Very. It was something we didn’t have, we didn’t raise on the farm, because normally we didn’t go shopping. We would trade with the peddler for the meal what we really needed. But Christmas morning we would get up, and here we’d always have a candy cane, and basically, that was all we got for Christmas. But it was nice, because we were getting something we hadn’t had before.

ME: Very nice! What kind of food would your family prepare for Christmas? What was it like to gather around the table? Was it just your family, or did you have friends and other relatives over?

M.H.: With six children in the family, and our home was so small, we didn’t have room for anymore people. Normally relatives would come over in the summer, when it was warm outside. But during Christmas time, my mother told me if I gave her oranges, she would make an orange cake. And so we did that, but she always had, uh, maybe a ham for Christmas, that we did not normally have every day. I could not remember having beef, when I was young, because we did not go into town often, and it was expensive. I think I was probably around fourteen before I had my first hamburger that I could remember, but we would have plenty of dried foods like nuts, like peanuts, and walnuts, and that’s basically what food was like where I lived, because that’s what was grown. We would also have, uh, rabbits and squirrel, and that was the game, deer was very rare.

ME: Back then, there were no pesticides? So, there were no toxins sprayed into the environment, so it was OK to have squirrels?

M.H.: Well, squirrels were very rare, but in the winter time when we needed meat or protein of some kind, my mother would go out with a rifle, and she would then make squirrel stew.

ME: And was that a normal part of your Christmas dinner, too?

M.H.: Uh, no.

ME: And rabbits? What about beef, or pork?

M.H.: For pork, we practically had pork all the time for Christmas; smoked ham. And we had fish because we lived on the banks of the river, and chicken, and that was about it.

ME: And also about Christmas, that was Christmas Eve you were describing?

M.H.: No that was always Christmas Morning. Christmas Eve, we would hurry up and go to bed, because Santa Claus was coming.

ME: Then Santa Claus was for a long time a part of growing up for you?

M.H.: Yes, yes.

ME: OK, thank you.

 

The holiday of Christmas, as described by M.H., was heavily shaped by her rural background, as well as the bleak financial circumstances of the Great Depression. M.H. and her family rarely ate meat, due to expenses, although on Christmas, pork was often eaten. She also mentions that she held the familiar belief in Santa Claus, throughout her childhood. I live in luxury, compared to what M.H. had to endure, although she comes across as having been content, as though it was all that was familiar to her. There is one thing that we both hold in common however, and that is the ritual concerning Santa Claus, making an appearance and bearing gifts in the night, to be opened the next morning.

Behavior, Traditions, and Rituals

Nationality: American
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Primary Language: English

“With only few exceptions, my family and extended family is entirely Christian of a certain variety, mainly Baptist, Roman Catholic, a few Methodists and non-denominational as well. I had the pleasure of visiting Nana’s hometown in Arkansas with her about a year before she passed away. I remember driving past a river and when all of a sudden she lit up and exclaimed: “I was baptized in this river!” Although she was baptized as an infant in her father’s Roman Catholic Church, she would later be baptized as a teenager in her mother’s church, which was Baptist. This was the tradition she practiced all her life. In those days her mother’s church did not have the resource to build or maintain a baptismal pool in the church, so when someone was to be baptized, the church community would gather at the river to pray. The baptismal candidates, dressed in white, were baptized by submersion in the river. They would then process back to the church to singing hymns of deliverance, thanksgiving and praise to God. We gather to celebrate christenings, baptisms, first communions, confirmations, graduations and marriages. We celebrate the lives of our departed loved ones, and gather during the major holidays to enjoy our family and close friends. One of my favorite traditions during Christmastime is eating gumbo on Christmas Eve. Made of a rich assortment of meats and seafood in a thick rue, it finds its in the rich cuisine of Louisiana with African, Native American, Spanish and French influence. It is perhaps my favorite meal. It has been a tradition of my family to gather on Christmas Eve with family friends and share a meal before we head to Midnight Mass.”

 

The contemporary Christmas celebrations described by J.S. have delighted him, and he shares what normally took place in his family. It is notable that coming from a Southern U.S. African American perspective, his Christmas culinary traditions are shaped by this. I am shaped by the Christmas traditions of my family, and extended relatives, much in the same way as J.S. is. His experiences, although different, are very interesting and cheerful. Different families may celebrate in different ways, yet he also religiously observes Christmas, which I share in common with him, despite being Protestant, and he a Roman Catholic.

Camp Prank

Nationality: American
Age: 25
Occupation: Student
Residence: LA
Primary Language: English

“When I used to be a counselor at a boys camp, we would always do this prank near the end of the week. I would get all the boys in my troop together and say ‘I’m not supposed to tell you guys this, but I think you’re old and mature enough to know. There used to be an old insane asylum in this area. Some say the ghosts of the people who died there still haunt these campgrounds.’ A lot of them would get spooked, and for the next hour or so some of the other counselors would make creepy wailing noises, or stand out near the edge of our campground in a hood. Eventually we would tell them the truth, but not after we had scared the hell out of them.”

Like most pranks, this seems to have some liminal-shifting purpose behind it. Even the statement within the prank itself, where the informant tells the kids that they are “old enough to know” seems to hint at the coming transition to adulthood. My own memories of camp are filled with similar pranks, and a multitude of other varieties which all, in their own way, smooth out that transition into adulthood. With this particular kind of prank, it seems that the point may be to force young campers to learn about confronting fear.