Hi everybody,
I’m Paolo,
Just want to tell you how I celebrated 1st May. But before that I’ll tell you what I’ve found out about this festivity. I won’t bore you , I promise. Just a little information.
I searched the net and read an interesting chapter from the book “Calendario “ by A. Cattabiani (a good book if you want to know everything about festivals).
May 1st is the International Workers’ Day that commemorates the struggle of working people in the world. It dates back to the 1880s in the USA with the fight for an eight-hour work day. The heart of the movement was in Chicago where during a labour rally organized to protest against the brutality of the police, a bomb was thrown to the police and the police responded by firing into the crowd killing one person and injuring many others.
The Church has accepted this festivity and consecrated it to the first saint “worker”, St Joseph. So in 1956 Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of St Joseph the Worker.
It is
just a coincidence but May Day used to
celebrate the coming of summer, it marked the triumph of light over
darkness. The earliest May Day celebrations
appeared in pre-Christian times, with the festival of Flora, the Roman goddess
of flowers, and the Walpurgis Night celebrations of the Germanic countries. It is also associated with
the festival of Beltaine, of Celtic origin.
Still nowadays in some regions of Italy, like Tuscany, Umbria, Liguria,
there are traditional festivals called “Calendimaggio” . During the festival
the “maggerini” go from door to door to sing songs about nature, spring,
seasons, love. They are joyful songs celebrating rebirth and new life.
The following photos were taken in Macerata and give you an idea about how people celebrated 1st May : near the public gardens there were stalls and also a band giving a concert. Pity the weather in the afternoon was not very good and the rain interrupted the concert a lot of times !
Anyway the really great concert is in Rome , it is organized by the Labour Unions every year and it is broadcast live by the third channel of the state TV (Rai 3). A lot of famous bands and singers are involved and a lot of young people go to Rome to enjoy music and have fun. I wish I had gone.
This is my miserable 1st May.
It was a day when everything went wrong. I went to Mogliano to have a picnic as many people do on this day. They fill their picnic basket with a lot of good things ,the typical food is cheese (pecorino) and broad beans and off they go, ready to enjoy themselves. I too wanted to have fun but:
I got up late, I was in a hurry and so forgot to take my bagpipe.
I also forgot to take chips for my friend. My task was to buy chips for everybody.
I got to Mogliano at 1pm, very late, and while we were having lunch it started to rain. So we decided to go home.
While we were going home my friend realized he had lost his i-Phone.
Just the icing on the cake!
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