Author Archives: Mark Albano

THEY’RE NOT FROM AROUND HERE

Nationality: Italian-American, Portuguese-American, but a couple generations removed
Age: 55
Occupation: Engineering Professor
Residence: Boston, MA
Performance Date: 3/25/15
Primary Language: English

EXAMPLE:

“They’re not from around here.”

BACKGROUND

“This is a line that sometimes still gets used in our house.

We went out to visit Jimmy (his wife’s brother) in San Diego. Him and his girlfriend at the time. We were going to some fair in the town just north of San Diego. I forget the town, maybe it was Carlsbad. I’m not exactly sure of where.

I was driving the rental car. It was like a big one too because we had to fit us five in the family plus Jim and his girlfriend, Amy. So we get to the fair and there are people there to direct you where to park. You know it’s this big lot and they wave us in, you know, go, go, go. And they are giving us directions, like turn left, go straight, turn right, turn left.

The next thing you know we’re about to exit. They directed me through the lot to the exit. And if I go out the exit, I’m stuck because it empties onto a one-lane highway. So I stop and do a U-Turn to turn around.

Next thing you know the guys are yelling at me saying that I can’t do that. And I’m just like, “I want to park the car.” And then I hear from the back Amy yelling, “They’re not from around here.”

“They’re not from around here!” Even though that had no relationship as to why I didn’t park the car. Me not being from San Diego did not account from those people not navigating me correctly through the lot.

So now my wife and I use it when we get lost or don’t understand something.”

ANALYSIS:

I feel like people can learn a lot about others during travel. Traveling is just one of those times when the best and worse is brought out of everyone. It is in those moments of stress that so many funny things can happen that make for great stories later.

This is one that apparently is told with some regularity to it, with that line being the real gem of it all. To adopt it and say it, of course brings this family back to those days of traveling in a new location, half-way across the country. I think their might even be some unconscious cultural bias here. Amy, I was told is from the west, and is generally remembered as being somewhat ditzy. So that line kind of encompasses that stereotype of dumb blonde California girls.

More than that though, I think it is one of those really funny, organic moments that people tend to hold on, not wanting to forget. That line is a perfect excuse for whenever something does not go your way in a new location, and can also serve as a way to ease the tension and stress. If something goes wrong, just say, “I’m not from around here.”

REBUILDING THE HARDWARE STORE

Nationality: Mainly Irish-American, but a couple of generations removed
Age: 54
Occupation: Environmental Government Employee
Residence: Boston, MA
Performance Date: 3/25/15
Primary Language: English

ABOUT THE INFORMANT:

My informant is a mother of three who lives just outside of Boston with her husband of over 30 years. She is originally from Cape Cod, the part of Massachusetts that is full of beaches and is a world known tourist destination. She is a lover of all thing water; she has worked extensively in water policy and water pollution as an environmentalist.

EXAMPLE:

“So basically the summer I was 16…well, my dad had a country hardware store on the Cape {Cod} that burnt down when I was 14. And there was no insurance on the building. My parents had a piece of land in Orleans that was once where the building stood.

It was this terrible fire. I remember in eighth grade cooking dinner for my siblings while my parents were down there. My parents were watching the fire, watching their store come down.

In fact, for the four days of Thanksgiving break we had a fire sale. We pulled out of the store what we could after the fire. All the smoky, gross items. And we set up on the driveway next to the burnt down business. It was like a flea market. All of us were working. Just to get any money to pay off the items in the store because we still owed money on them, you know? We hadn’t paid back the people we bought them from.

So we had no money. But we did have this piece of land. So my dad started stockpiling lumber. It was actually bargain lumber, like cheap lumber he could find, all in our yard. So after a year, no after a couple of years, he got all of the lumber he needed. So he built a new store. All by himself. One summer, everyday he would work on it. I would ride by on my bike everyday and see him, building it. “Hi, Dad.” I worked as a chambermaid at a motel nearby. Then I would ride back every night and see him, still working.

He built it all by himself. One day he hired one guy so that they could raise the steel beam in the middle, for structural support, but that’s it. He was out there everyday, by himself that whole summer. And I would pass by him everyday.”

COMMENTS:

“That’s something we often talk about. We remember how even when we had nothing, we literally rose from the ashes. He rose us from the ashes. We tell that story a lot in my family. He went on to own five successful hardware stores. That was the turning point. We all learned about struggling and not giving up from him there.”

ANALYSIS:

This story hits on a couple of different elements. Even though it itself is true, or at least as true as a story can be when someone tells it, with no real fantastical or folkish elements to it, it contributes heavily to this family’s folklore.

This family cites this as a moment when their fortunes and fate began to change. This is kind of a liminal moment in a way, in that it is the part in between utter devastation and financial success. When they talk about her dad, and the stores for that matter, they talk about this moment. The moment of rebirth, and “the turning point.”

It also adds to the lore of her father, a very highly regarded figure in her family. She is filled with pride when looking back at him, single handedly rebuilding this family’s hope. While the story may be grounded in reality, it adds to his legend. He would go on to be talked about and looked upon as this amazing figure in her and her family’s world. This is one of those moments that would be talked about repeatedly in this family, as his lore grew with it.

Lastly, I feel as though this informant attributes this as a lesson or a trait she inherited from her father. Seeing him at work everyday, after such a terrible thing happened, not giving up, had a lasting impression on her. I feel as though she uses it to learn the importance of hard work and resilience; that it helps keep her fire going.

CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS

Nationality: Irish-American
Age: 54
Occupation: Environmental Government Employee
Residence: Boston, MA
Performance Date: 3/25/15
Primary Language: English

ABOUT THE INFORMANT:

My informant is a mother of three who lives just outside of Boston with her husband of over 30 years. She is originally from Cape Cod, the part of Massachusetts that is full of beaches and is a world known tourist destination. She is a lover of all thing water; she has worked extensively in water policy and water pollution as an environmentalist.

EXAMPLE:

Interviewee: My dad never did any Christmas shopping for anybody. He always left it all to Mom. As he got older, I guess he got much more free time. He would spend all year going to flea markets. Just searching for Christmas gifts. Sometimes something would catch his eye and he would not even know what it was. The year I ruptured my Achilles tendon playing tennis, I got Tennis For Dummies.

He would just give everyone a massive bag full of stuff. A bag for each person. All this cheap stuff he found at these yard sales and Salvation Armies; sometimes it was thoughtful, but most of it was crap.

It was the worst for the people dating into the family. When Lynn, my sister-in-law, first starting coming to the family Christmas, she got all these random things that no one knew anything about. Weird pieces of wood. A styrofoam ball. But she just took it and said thank you, trying to be polite, while he was just laughing because he knew that he gave crap. But then she surprised us all one year when she turned around and glued it together and created a figurine. Then she gave it to him.

We would come home with so much crap, we couldn’t keep it all, but I do have a farting Santa doll.

Interviewer: What about when he got sick?

Interviewee: When he passed away, we wanted to keep it alive. It was so much fun. We couldn’t all give everyone presents; that was just too much. But we all picked names and gave personalized stockings with funny and outrageous, sometimes nice, gifts to the person.

Interviewer: And you still do it?

Interviewee: Yeah, I mean, no one wanted to give it up. It is hard though. It is all tailored to them. There are no gift certificates. You have to really go out and think about them. It’s nice, even if it is crap. It’s crap tailored for them. Thoughtful crap.

ANALYSIS:

There is so much stress around Christmas. It clearly has become so overwhelmingly commercial and impersonal, that I feel like what her father was doing was almost the anti-version of that. Not to be a hipster or part of a counter culture or whatever, but because that’s what he wanted to do. He wanted to give hand picked crap. Just for the joke or shock. Because he was such a strong figure in this family and because he would not stop doing it, it became a tradition.

When he died, that is when it took on a whole new dimension. Not wanting to give him or it up they modified it, so that people kept getting these personalized stockings. Even though he was gone, the stockings and laughter did not have to go. That is most likely the sentimental aspect of it. On a practical level, it is a really good way to make sure that people get gifts for Christmas that feel as though they were personally chosen for them. An added benefit.

 

DANCE PARTIES

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC, from Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/15
Primary Language: English

EXAMPLE:

Informant: What about dance parties?

Interviewer: What about dance parties?

Informant: We used to have them, as a kid. When I was younger. Would they count as folklore?

Interviewer: What do you mean?

Informant: Well it was like this thing. Like whenever it was late and it was bedtime, but we couldn’t go to sleep, we would have dance parties.

Interviewer: Who?

Informant: Well it would be like when we had been staying up talking to my mom, and then she would tell us to go to bed. But we weren’t tired. So she would throw a mini-dance party for my brothers and me.

Interviewer: Was there a specific song you would listen to?

Informant: Yeah! What was it? I know it. If you heard it, you would know it. (After Googling something) “Moondance” by Van Morrison. My aunt gave her like a mix CD from her high school reunion and that was on it. We would always listen to that song.

Interviewer: And dance?

Informant: Yeah. Until we got tired, then we would crash out and go to sleep.

ANALYSIS:

I feel like every parent must have a trick to get their kids to go to sleep, and this one sounds like a fun one that will easily tire the kids out. Kids, generally speaking, do not like to miss out on time with the adults and do not feel like they are missing out, so it makes sense that this informant’s mother would initiate the dance parties often when the informant and her siblings were up talking to the mother. When she said it was time to go to sleep, they probably groaned. So she made a game out of it.

I like the addition that it was one particular song, “Moondance”. That to me made it a ritual. That when they heard the words dance party, they knew exactly what music would played. It is also interesting that the music was passed along by another family member. That does not necessarily mean anything, but it is very folkloric to have all the elements passed down or along by other people. Her mother did not pick “Moondance” arbitrarily, it was on a CD her sister gave her. That just feels more special for the entire process and dance party.

BATE

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC, from Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/15
Primary Language: English

EXAMPLE:

“So this is something that we actually took from “Dora the Explorer” in my house. There is an episode, where, I think we were watching because it was when my brothers were younger and they would watch it. And my mom would watch with us. So we were watching one day, and I think they were making chocolate. Dora and her grandmother.

And so they sang the chocolate song.

‘Bate, bate, chocolatè

Mix that cho-co-late, chocolatè

Bate, bate, chocolatè!’

So we heard that, and I think maybe my mom had heard it before. Like I think it is a thing Mexican culture, I don’t know though. Because I remember once telling someone about it who was Mexican and he knew a version of it. But that was the first time me and my brothers heard it.

But anyways, so in the show they sang it to make chocolate. Like stir it together, or something. But for us, after that, my mom would rub our bellies when we had a stomach ache and sing it to us. She would like rub it in a circle, and after we would feel better.

So then when I would get stomach aches after I went to college, I would have my boyfriend, who is white, sing the song to me and rub my stomach. Which of course he then was mad and wanted me to do the same to him when he got stomach aches. So now whenever we’re piggies and eat too much, we rub eachother’s stomachs and sing the song. “Can you bate me?” It’s pretty gross.”

ANALYSIS:

This is like a mix of folk music and folk medicine. There seems to be some Hispanic heritage or pride peeking its way into this tradition. Since Dora the Explorer is Hispanic, and she believes her mom may have known this song prior, it does feel grounded in the Hispanic culture.

It is also folk medicine in that she uses it specifically for relieving stomach aches, not for mixing chocolate like Dora does. A stomach ache is such a weird thing to cure; there are definitely some over the counter cures, but it does not surprise me that people would think of different ways to cure it. I like that she has now passed it down to her significant other. The song has taken on a whole new meaning than it was most likely originally intended for.

It is funny that this seems to be a pretty traditional song, a Google search comes with a bunch of variants (see below) that was repurposed for Dora the Explorer. It was also kind of gringo-fied, which is to say many of the other versions were more based in Spanish, but Dora seems to strip that out and replace it with English. It is an interesting, but somewhat predictable choice.

I found this other version of the “Bate” song here.