Author Archives: Grace Carballo

Giving You My Strength

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: Illinois, USA
Performance Date: April 24, 2015
Primary Language: English

My mom started this junior or sophomore year of high school I think. I always get super nervous, you know, for like a big test or for volleyball and what she did is, she grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me violently and said, “This is me giving you my strength!”

She does it to all of us. Just the other day, I guess, she did it to Tommy, and he goes, “That’s not your strength, you’re just shaking my shoulders!” (she laughs). Oh, Tommy.

I told my roommate, Kayla, about it and she texted me it before my accounting exam. She goes, “This is me giving you my strength.”

I think my mom made it up.

I’ve offered my services to a few people here and there and they always laugh it off.

But, yeah, I think it works. It always does make me feel better, to be honest.

You know, I always thought if I ever got a tattoo, it would be of that. “This is me giving you my strength.” I’m probably not going to get a tattoo, though…I’ll definitely do it for my kids.

context of the performance: 

This description of a family custom before a big event from mother to child was described in a one-on-one conversation between the informant and the collector. We are close friends, which is why she does not explain necessarily who the different characters are in her telling. Tommy is her youngest sibling.

thoughts on the piece:

Though this is a relatively new family custom, it demonstrates a maternal selflessness and concern for her children. As the informant mentioned, what started as something specific to her, the eldest daughter, has become a customary practice. The different children’s perceptions of it is interesting, as well. The informant believes in it so much that she has tried to share it with others and new people in her life say it to her before major events, still. Her younger brother is much more skeptical.

The Blue Kerchief Ceremony

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: Connecticut
Performance Date: April 20, 2015
Primary Language: English

At camp, we have this thing called the BK Ceremony,  for “Blue Kerchief”. It’s on the third day of the term, I think it’s the third day, on a Sunday, and what it is is we come up with this thing called, “The Code of Living”.  So for that what we do is we come up with words that we want to live by- words like “genuine”, “compassion”, “brave”, “indelible”. You know how I want to get that tattoo of “indelible”? That’s from camp, it was in our Code.

So, yeah, we decide as a unit what we want the Code to be. So on the first Sunday we all go to the Buddy Ring, which is a nook in between these mountains and we sing all these songs. I think they change every year, they’re not set in stone.

And then the counselors present the BKs to the campers. So it’s when you wear this kerchief, the Blue Kerchief, you’re living by the Code. And if you break the Code, you get your Kerchief taken away.

What happens if you get it taken away?

Well then you don’t get to wear it to Chapel and everyone can see you and knows you broke the code. (She laughs).

So the ceremony is they tie the BKs in this special knot, a friendship knot… (to other friend listening and laughing) Shut up!  And yeah, the counselors put them over us and give us a hug. And then as cabins, we got up as cabins and then we all get in a huddle, you know like a sports huddle, and then the counselors pump us up for the term and then we sit down again.

Can you tell me more about the camp?

Yeah, so the BK ceremony is by unit and there are 60 girls or guys per unit, 4 units of boys and 4 units of girls. The units are by age and you can be 8-17 at Camp Cheley. It’s in Colorado. It’s in Estes Park, voted number one small town in America!

When did it start?

I have no idea. Camp was founded in 1921, so probably around then.

Why has it kept going all these years?

Probably because it’s a beautiful ceremony, and the Code of Living is super important, and it’s you know, a physical reminder of it.

Context of the Performance:

The informant told her camp rituals to a table of our friends during Monday night dinner. We knew she had gone to camp, because she has talked about it before, but this is the first time I ever asked her in depth questions, which she was very excited to share. The informant is very passionate about her camp and plans to work there this summer.

My thoughts on the piece:

It was interesting to see how excited the informant was to explain her camp experience, another example of the distinction between being inside the group verses outside of it. She was defensive when another person listening laughed at part of the ritual, which shows how much she believes in the sacredness of these traditions.

It also is interesting how the shame of having your kerchief taken away, which is largely symbolic, is enough to keep these kids living by the code.

“You gotta have a home.”

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: tax accountant (intern)
Residence: Illinois, USA
Performance Date: April 29, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

I guess I know one that would be uh, a proverb. Just: “You gotta have a home.”

What do you think that means?

I don’t know. I have no idea.

Okay, um. When did you first hear this proverb?

When? Um… I don’t know how old. I guess I was probably ten years old. And it was at story time at our house right before bed. Or maybe Uncle Tom’s house. Either way, it was us and Joey and Jake and we asked for one more story and they  said they would tell us the story of the boll weevil and then just started singing, “You gotta have a home.”

I guess it… emphasizes the importance of family. Like having a home is having a family you can count on. Dad and Uncle Tom just wanted us to go to bed.

Have you told this proverb to anyone else?

Actually, yeah! I passed it on to Luke to make him mad when he asked me to tell him a story like four years ago.

Context of the performance: 

I asked the informant, who happens to be my brother, to tell me his favorite family sayings that we tell and retell. He immediately thought of the story of the boll weevil.

Collector’s Thoughts on this Piece

Members of our family definitely repeat the phrase, “You gotta have a home”, but never with as little context as the first time it was told, which the informant described.  The story of the boll weevil has become an inside joke of sorts, a way for bored  or tired bedtime storytellers to end it and annoy the kids.  The informant does not go into much detail about this but story time was a big part of our childhood whenever we had a cousins sleepover.

For another version of this piece, there is actually a recorded song with similar lyrics. Uncle Tom must have misheard them or forgotten the rest because the only lyric, which turned into a family proverb over time, he sang is “you gotta have a home”, which isn’t actually a part of this recorded version.

Benton, Brook, and Stan Applebaum. The Boll Weevil Song and Eleven Other Great Hits. Mercury, 1961. CD.

Cross-Country T.P.ing Tradition

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: Illinois
Performance Date: April 19, 2015
Primary Language: English

Okay. I don’t know, I guess what we did is gather up toilet paper and then we…T.P.ed his house. I think it’s always supposed to be the day after Sectionals. Yeah, it definitely is, because it’s to celebrate qualifying for the State meet.

We just knew we had to do it…’cus people do it every year.  It’s always the seniors, doesn’t have to just be the State team or anyone. And I guess a few juniors come to learn how to do it next year…and it’s right around Halloween, too.

I don’t know where exactly the tradition started from. I think it is just sort of a common thing to do in high school. Like, I know Kevin and his friends were always doing it. It’s just a common deed on Naperville North.

But for this, I think it was more “woohoo we won!” or possibly out of vengeance.  Different people came for different reasons to the T.P.ing. Like I know you and I probably came to celebrate and for state and stuff, but Marie I know did it for vengeance for the hard workouts.

And yeah…his family tradition, well it became their tradition, to um, cleaning it up the next day. He said it was like Christmas morning for them, for his kids (laughs).

context of the performance:

The informant, my close friend and former teammate, reflected with me one-on-one about our high school cross country tradition to T.P. or toilet paper our coach’s house after the qualifying State meet.

thoughts on it:

It is interesting how it meant different things to different people, but this act, which is probably considered vandalism, is done as a tradition and sort of out of love. It is even funnier that it has become a part of their family traditions to clean it up together, a “Christmas morning” of sorts, as the informant mentioned.

 

 

Children, do you love each other?

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: business litigator
Residence: Illinois, USA
Performance Date: April 12, 2015
Primary Language: English

So, it goes like this:

“Children do you love each other?

Are you always kind and true?

Do you always do to others

as you would have them do to you?

Little birdies in their next agree,

tis a shameful sight to see,

Children of one family,

fall out, and chide and fight.”

And Sister Lorita got it… I think she must have gotten it from her own family. But she was a good friend of my moms and after she died, she came over and visited a lot. She worked at Mercy Hospital, they were really close… she ran the alcoholism unit at Mercy, but anyway she always said it whenever we’d argue about something.

Informant 2, age 22, son of Informant 1:

“Children do you love each other?” I remember mom saying it. But not Sister Lorita. Just like whenever we were fighting.

context: In a one on one conversation with informant 1, my father, I asked him if he remembered all the words to this poem that we often heard when we were fighting.

thoughts: Informant 2, did not remember all of it, probably because for him and our family, my mom, who got it from Sister Lorita, only needed to say the first few lines and we would stop what we were doing or just complain about the poem.

Sister Lorita was a great friend to my dad’s family after his mom died and so visiting her was a big part of Informant 2’s and my childhood, though he may not remember.