Tag Archives: American

Dark-Humor at a Funeral

Background: N is an American with part Irish/Norwegian descent. During funerals, he remembers his uncles sharing a compilation of the deceased person’s best jokes and most scandalous stories to garner a few laughs.

Text:

N: “When the official funeral ceremony was over, I remember my four great uncles would gather at the reception and start cracking jokes at the dead person’s expense…sort of brutal to be honest. They’d air out all the person’s dirty laundry, but everyone seemed to really enjoy it… I always thought it was super fun as a kid because everyone was laughing… I didn’t understand the profanity much.”

Interviewer: “Did they do this at every funeral?”

N: “Pretty much anyone’s, mostly at each other’s to be honest…maybe because they knew they wouldn’t be offended if someone were cracking jokes over their own deathbed. It sadly got to the point where no one was left to share the jokes…and the tradition sort of died out.”

Interviewer: “Did anyone ever get upset?”

N: “I don’t really remember but I think everyone got pretty used to it. But [the uncles] definitely stayed serious at certain funerals, like if the person were less closely related to the immediate family, if you know what I mean.”

Analysis:

In many western societies, funerals are viewed as a time to mourn and be sorrowful over the passing of a lost loved one. However, others choose to celebrate and reflect upon the life of the deceased by having a bit of fun. Most likely, N’s heritage played a role in the type of traditions involved at funerals. His uncles’ habits of telling jokes at the funeral can also reflect how Irish or Norwegian culture, specifically in America, choose to take a more joyous perspective in the face of mortality. Although someone’s life cycle might come to an end, their impact is remembered and cherished by the family through oral tradition. Notably, N’s uncles refrained from telling the jokes at funerals of people considered outsiders to their immediate family, thus demonstrating how the tradition can be particular to the family as well. While the in-group finds it amusing, they must be cautious of how out-groups perceive the practice.

Scuba Diver Riddle

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: College student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 2/14/2023
Primary Language: English

D is 19 years old, she’s a college student. She moved to California for high school, and has a large history with camping and hiking. She shared this trail game riddle she learned at summer camp in North Carolina when she was 11 or 12, though she’s also heard it multiple times while hiking. 

“You could call them detective riddles, but they’re all in the same genre of: someone presents a scenario and then the one who’s trying to figure it out is asking questions about the scenario until they get more and more details and they figure out the answer to the scenario. This one is known as the scuba diver riddle. The scenario is “a man is found in the middle of a burned down forest head to toe in scuba gear. There’s no trace of anyone else around him, no trace of how he got there, what happened?” From there people ask questions like “Is he wet? Yes or no. Is he alive?” Sometimes it takes 20 minutes, I’ve seen up to three days, it’s a great thing to play when you’re in the backcountry and really bored. The eventual answer is that the man is someone who was scuba diving, there was a forest fire miles and miles away from sea, and helicopter crews trying to stop the wild fire were collecting water in huge nets to carry over to the forest from the ocean. They picked up this scuba diver, dropped him on the forest fire, he died on impact.” 

This was a new brand of riddle that I hadn’t heard because it seems to be specific to those who go hiking or are out in nature for a long time. It seems like an excellent way to pass a lot of time. It’s really interesting how groups that spend a lot of time doing something repetitive like walking up a trail or camping will get creative to engage their minds over that long period of time. I wonder how far back games like these go. I imagine games like this have existed for a long time, because before cars people often had to walk very far to get to their destination if they were traveling somewhere new, like soldiers marching or people going on the Oregon Trial. I imagine humans have been creating these games for a long time, and they’ve morphed to suit modern audiences, as this riddle is terminus post quem helicopters and scuba gear existing. The informant also said that this riddle was used by adults to frustrate and keep kids busy, because kids like to ask a lot of questions. It seems like a good way to quench kid’s curiosity, because kids are endlessly curious.

Wooly Worm Weather Prediction

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Calfornia
Performance Date: 4/30/22
Primary Language: English

Background: My informant is a 50 year old woman from Tennessee. She first heard about the folklore from her father, but has heard it many times anecdotally since.

J: Wooly worms are funny little caterpillars, I’m sure you’ve seen them before. They’re everywhere in the south. 

Me: I saw tons of them in Maine when I went to summer camp! So, tell me more about them. 

J: Well, I’m no bug expert. I know they’re orange and black, and they’ve got fur! *laughter* I always thought they were funny-looking. They’re usually in the foliage, but some of them come out to uh, say hello at picnics and such. But people think the ones you find in fall can predict the severity of the winter. If the orange band is big, the winter will be mild. A bigger black band means a nasty winter. It’s a common belief. 

Me: I think I’ve heard that before. Do you think it’s true?

J: I had some cousins who really thought so. When we were younger we’d go out and look for them and they’d try to make predictions. I was probably only 6 or 7. I didn’t care so much, I just wanted to hold them, and uh, I suppose I didn’t have a good frame of reference back then. I didn’t really know what was a big band or a small band, they usually all looked the same to me. I think I can tell better now. But I’m not sure myself if it’s real. I remember bad winters, but I don’t remember if I saw big black bands on the caterpillars before them.

My thoughts: This superstition is very common, especially east of the American continental divide, so much so that after our conversation I looked it up and saw that a scientist in the 50’s tried to scientifically prove its accuracy. He didn’t ultimately do that great because his sample sizes were too small. Very similar to this practice is Groundhog day, where Punxsutawney Phil looks for his shadow, and if he sees it, it means six more weeks of winter. The difference is that the wooly worm predictions are more localized and personalized, as anyone who finds a caterpillar can make their own predictions. Groundhog day is mostly endemic to Pennsylvania, though even in California some people take it as a prediction for our own winter, which is quite silly. I think the wooly worm predictions have a better chance of being legitimate than the groundhog prediction, though both are ultimately just longstanding and fun folk superstitions. 

For more info on wooly worms, see https://www.almanac.com/woolly-bear-caterpillars-and-weather-prediction

Be Careful in the PetSmart Elevator

Nationality: American
Age: 51
Occupation: Marketing
Residence: Walnut Creek, CA
Performance Date: November 3, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: German and Italian

Background: The informant is now doing marketing for a wine company in the bay area. However, at the time of the encounter she was working in Arizona in a corporate office of PetSmart. She has never had an encounter like this before the one she describes and she has not had any other encounters since. 

BW: So it was 2013 and I worked at PetSmart in Phoenix in the corporate office. And It was not an old building, it was just your average boring corporate office that looked like anything else, not like haunted or anything. My friend and I were just chatting. We were on our way to a meeting. Everyone worked on the main floor and there’s like an elevator and we are going up to a conference room up to another level. So, she and I were just we were walking probably carrying notebooks or whatever and just walking through the lobby until like this little elevator Lobby and in the elevator bank there were three elevators and so we’re walking and there’s always people standing there you know waiting for the elevator, it was right by the cafeteria as well and so tons of people around. you know probably like 2000 people worked in the buildings, there were a couple of buildings kind of like a complex. And so just always people around and you don’t really pay much attention and you don’t know everyone. 

Me: Oh so not the normal place people would think of seeing ghosts. So where did you actually feel like the encounter happened? 

BW: Well, we’re just talking, walking to the elevator we see this woman standing there and she’s waiting for the elevator and you know she had something in her arm like she had a binder in her arm and she just looked like anybody else.

Me: Do you remember more about her physical appearance? Like why didn’t she stand out much? 

BW:  She was probably maybe late 20s early 30s so not like way older or anything you know. There was nothing unusual about her whatsoever; she looked like anyone, she wasn’t like see through anything. She just looked like anyone waiting for the elevator in the building that works at PetSmart.

Me: Okay, then why did you think there was something off with her? 

BW: Well, we were just walking and the elevator doors open, she walks in and then the doors shut and like we had hit the button and they just they like popped back open again so like they were closed for like 2 seconds maybe like they were close and then they popped back open and my friend and I we both walked in and at the same time we both said ‘oh sorry’ because it’s rude. We were rude. She was on her way up in the elevator and we kind of delayed her and so we both walked in and both said “oh sorry” and we walked in and there was no one in the elevator, there was no one there.

Me: Do you think there could have been some other explanation? Like a door to get out or some other exit to the elevator? 

BW: There was nowhere for her to go, there wasn’t like a back door or entrance, some elevators have two sides, but this one didn’t. There was only one way in and out of the elevator. 

Me: And you said you were with someone else right? So you must have both seen her? 

BW: Yes, we both obviously saw her because we both said sorry at the exact same time and then B and I looked at each other and we were both just looking around like did you just see what I saw did you see a woman walk in here and it’s like yes, we both saw her. She described her to me and it was the same person I saw and it’s like we thought we saw the same thing and so like we walked up to the meeting and we were like, my God I think you saw a ghost I mean we saw something we don’t know what we saw but we were just really both pretty shaken by it.

Me: Did you or anyone else ever encounter the same woman again? 

BW: I didn’t work there much longer. This was February 2013 and I moved to Northern California in May so I was only there for like a couple more months so I didn’t see her again. But since then B worked there for a long time after I did and she said that people would see this woman like they would see her occasionally. Someone would say hey B, somebody saw your ghost you know someone who saw the woman you saw in the elevator Lobby again.

Me: So do you have a theory or explanation for what it actually was? 

BW: Well, I mean that’s it I just there’s no I don’t know that she was a ghost obviously but all I know is that I can’t explain what it was. 

I discussed this with the informant in person while sitting across from her. 

My Thoughts: This is one of my favorite “ghost” stories because it is so void of any explanation. It is purely just a story of what she and her friend saw. I definitely believe that it happened; that they did see this woman go into the elevator and then somehow miraculously disappeared. Yet, like her, I have no explanation. 

Mudding

Nationality: American
Age: 37
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Dana Point
Performance Date: 3/19/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: n/a

The following conversation is transcribed from a conversation between me (HS) and my mother/informant (SW).

HS: So you had a high school tradition that you would like to elaborate upon, is that right?

SW: So back in high school, when I was still living in Kansas there really wasn’t that much to do. Here in California, you can go to the beach, surf, play volleyball, your options are virtually unlimited. You can take a drive to the desert or go to the mountains. But in Kansas, the options are a lot more limited. So what we would do as entertainment is something that we called, “mudding.”

HS: And what exactly is “mudding?”

SW: Okay, this is going to sound dumb, but there was literally nothing to do in Kansas. That’s why I moved back to California as soon as possible! But anyway, my friends and our guy friend group would take out our jeeps and trucks to the nearest muddy, flat area, and do donuts and drive around. The competition was to get as much mud on your car as possible and the winner would get paid out by all the other drivers.

Background:

My informant is my mother. She was raised in Huntington Beach, California, but she moved to Kansas with her family when she was 16 because a majority of her family was living there and in Missouri. She always dreamed of coming back to California and took the first opportunity she could get to come back. She now lives in Dana Point.

Context:

I was sitting at dinner with my parents and was talking to my mom about why she moved back to California from Kansas.

Thoughts:

This tradition in my mother’s community shines a light on smaller local contexts in which people seek entertainment. Mudding made me realize that traditions are widely confined to their regional context and are cultivated and transformed within those communities. Out of circumstance, individuals are confined to the cultural and regional settings in which they are raised.