- “Well my sister’s school does Red and Gold, which are the school’s colors and what they do is every year the entire school is split up into two groups, one group is on the red team and one is the gold team and then there’s the white team, which is all five-year-old,s who moderate the huge event where each team organizes their own play based on a singular theme. You have to create a story around the team and create dance numbers and song numbers and have a narratives. There are many purposes, to unite the school, to show off the unique talent,s and get closer to the brother school. And every year they judges claim the winning team is better, but it alternates- red wins, gold wins, red wins, gold wins and it’s a huge event and it was started by the first presidents of Rosary and it’s held on over years.”
- This tradition takes place at my friends sister’s school. It’s an unofficial activity that basically everyone particiaptes in though it takes place outside of academic hours. It appears to be a sort of unification ritual that occurs annually among the students. The school is a private, K-8 school.
Category Archives: Game
Remyk
My informant was born in Boston, but his parents immigrated to the United States from Poland. He is an American citizen, but he has spent a few summers in Poland, and his parents keep many Polish traditions alive in his household. He told me about a card game that a Polish visitor taught him. This is his account:
“Okay so, the game is Remyk. You can play it with anyone you want, because it’s a card game. I learned it from my great-aunt, who came to visit us from Poland. It’s often played by middle-aged people who basically tailgate the parking lot after church. So you play this game with two decks, that’s important. The game is, you get thirteen cards, and you draw from the pile to get fourteen. And you want to get a sequence—so like, 2, 3, 4—or you want like three of a kind of four of a kind. And they’re all worth points; face cards are all worth ten. And to start off, you need to get 52 points before you can, like, lay any cards out. And if you can’t, you have to discard one, so you go back to thirteen cards. And eventually, you’ll have a combination of sequence, and like three of a kind or something, so it all adds up to 52. And then you drop that. So let’s say you drop nine cards, because you have like a 7-8-9 and like, three queens and three jacks. And then you still have, what, 5 cards left? And you discard one and you have four. So then from there the goal is to get rid of all your cards, and you can do so by like, adding on. So you have three queens and you pick up a queen, you can add it, because it’s like the same. Or you can add on to like a sequence. And if it’s like three queens, it has to be the fourth kind. And you just play until you’re done—until the last card is discarded.”
Analysis: My informant associates this card game with Polish culture for a couple of reasons. First of all, he learned it from a Polish relative. Secondly, as he said, the adults who he saw playing this game were all Polish, and they typically played in the parking lots of Polish churches. Yet he also admits that this game is basically gin rummy, a card game enjoyed by all nationalities of people today. A quick Google search of “origins of rummy” yields answers ranging from New York City to “the orient.” This game, then, is yet another example of the dissemination of traditions, and how difficult it is to pinpoint exactly which culture can “claim” something as their own. For my informant, this game connected him to the country his parents grew up in as well as to the various groups of people with whom he played the game. He said he usually played Remyk with his family, so the game was something for them to bond over. Therefore, Remyk is not only culturally significant to my informant, but it is important to him on an individual level as well. It connects him to his family. It is fascinating how something as simple as a card game can have more impactful implications when explored more deeply.
Oh, Hell
My informant told me about a special card game that is unique to her family. This is her explanation of the rules of the game and the context it is played in:
“Okay, so this family tradition is a card game that we play, and my grandparents brought it to the family. It was my grandmother’s grandma who taught it to her, and then my grandma taught my grandpa, and now it’s a big part of that side of the family. So whenever we get together for family traditions or for weddings—even if it’s not for everybody, even if it’s just my parents getting together with my grandparents—we always play this game. It’s called ‘Oh, Hell’. Everybody starts with ten cards, and you work your way down. The first round is ten, then nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, and you go back up to ten. And so every time you have your cards and there’s a card that’s trump, so that suit is trump, and you bid on how many cards or how many tricks you will take. It’s kind of like you’re bidding on how many you will get, and you want to get that many tricks. But then, sometimes you’ll get too many or too little, and there’s a point system that goes along with that. And we made our own score sheets for it. And it’s very much so a family thing, because it’s not a common card game that many people know of. We have taught other people, but nobody knows it right off the bat. Um, and… yeah. So I just went to wedding in Arkansas for a cousin on my mom’s side of the family, and all our relatives were there, so of course we played ‘Oh, Hell’. And we had—like we always do—we had multiple tables playing the game. And then, I guess we had two tables going, and then the top winners at each table created a winners table, and the losers at each table created a losers table. Um, and it went form there. So we had the big winner, and then the winner of the losers, and all that stuff. So it is a big thing, definitely on just my mom’s side of the family. We don’t play it on my dad’s side; it’s just a [name redacted] family tradition.”
My informant’s description of ‘Oh, Hell’ indicates how important this card game is to her family. It signals to them that they are all members of this family, because the people that immediately know how to play are all related. This is one activity that unites all the relatives, and as my informant said, it is especially meaningful when played at large family reunions or weddings. It brings all of the extended family together. My informant’s relatives live all around the country, so I can see that traditions like this are quite valuable in the way that they unify everyone. My informant is extremely close to her parents and to her brother; she is used to growing up in a very tight-knit family. ‘Oh, Hell’ allows her to grow closer to all of the people she is related to on her mother’s side. It is evident that one of the reasons her family stays so close is because of games like these that they can bond over. Thus, it is evident that one of the many functions of folklore is that it can be used to strengthen family bonds and build connections between relatives.
The Tour de Franzia
“The Tour de Franzia” is a spinoff of “Le Tour de France”. In the informant’s words: “You bike with a bag of Franzia and see where the night takes you”. Franzia is a cheap wine that usually comes in a box, produced by The Wine Group. The idea is to get drunk off wine while biking and to have an adventure.
The informant first heard about The Tour de Franzia from a female friend at his old college. They were sitting in a dorm with a group of other students “taking shots of Sobieseski and listening to Cake”, and she was telling him about how she broke her wrist. She and her family would go to their summer house on Cape Cod every year, and all the adults and older kids would do the Tour de Franzia. It was a rural tradition. But the last time, she had broken her wrist. The informant claims that he would love to try the Tour de Franzia, despite the girl’s broken wrist account. The informant enjoys drinking alcohol and trying new things for fun, and he thinks that this tradition sounds like a blast.
The Tour de Franzia is a rural tradition, probably because there are less clubs and bars in rural areas, unlike Los Angeles, so the locals have to be more creative with their nighttime adventures and drinking. Furthermore, the tradition centers around bringing people, adults and older kids, together. It is a fun group activity. I feel like smaller towns celebrate connections between family and friends because they share common ties to a place.In contrast, Los Angeles is full of immigrants from both in and out of the country, and there aren’t big familial connections to be celebrated. However, the tradition has been appropriated by college students, such as the informant. This is because college students enjoy drinking, especially when it is cheap, and going on fun/dangerous adventures. I don’t think I would try this particular tradition, but I would be willing to lend a helmet to someone who would. It is an interesting combination of a material brand, Franzia wine, and a folk tradition.
Eenie Meanie
Eenie meanie miney mo
Catch a tiger by his toe
If he hollers make him pay
20 (or 50) dollars every day
My mother says to pick the very best one are you are not it
The informant told me this version of the familiar counting rhyme. She says that she used this rhyme in elementary school and with her sister and family friends. She says that she has also heard other versions, but that this was the one most common for her. The informant claimed that this rhyme brought back memories of childhood and the importance of decision making and fairness that accompanied it.
When she told me this version, I was startled by the change in the third line. I was expecting: If he hollers, let him go, eenie meanie miney mo. We discussed the differences between our two versions, possibly resulting from the fact that we grew up in different parts of the country. I think her version is more dark and harsh, making the tiger pay for his pain. Also, in the version I grew up with, the last part of the rhyme goes: my mother told me to pick the very best one and it is you. The rhyme I grew up with has a more affirmative ending, instead of “not you”. When I was a kid, fairness between me and my two sisters was very important, as I’m sure it was for other kids that age. Thus, this rhyme and others like it were used to create an illusion of fairness via randomness. However, when I was a little bit older, I realized that the outcome of the rhyme depends on who you start with, and thus it is not entirely random.