★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥
May 1st, 2014

★~ Today’s Quote: Rabbit Rabbit!

★~ May Day: 

The lusty month of May! May Day has been a traditional holiday celebration since ancient times. On this day, spring festivals and Maypoles are common. The Maypole is a tall pole that is covered with streamers, flowers and other decorations of spring. People grab hold of a streamer and dance around the pole to ward off ol’ man Winter for good. Since the 1880s, May Day has been celebrated in some countries, particularly socialist nations, as a labor holiday. In Hawaii, May Day is Lei Day.

★~ Beltane:

The sprouts are surer of themselves, the fragrant smell of fresh mowed grass sporadically wafts through the air, and we have the desire to move outside into the sunlight and warmth at every opportunity, perhaps even sitting on a sun-warmed front step and watching the world pass by for a few minutes. Beltane is an old Celtic fire festival, celebrating life, fertility, and growth. To learn more about Beltane click here 

★~Mother Goose Day:

From century to century—from generation to generation—from season to season—from day to day—Mother Goose has been an important part of the lives of children. We remember her today with our favorite rhymes.

★~ Chocolate Parfait Day:

Parfait is a French word meaning “perfect” that began to reference a layered, frozen dessert back in the 1890s. American parfait desserts are normally made by layering cream, ice cream, flavored Jello, yogurt, puddings, or other similar ingredients.  Fresh fruit, whipped toppings, syrups and fruit liqueurs can also be incorporated into any basic recipe. Normally, a parfait is created in a tall clear glass, making all the layers visible.  There are even special parfait glasses used for the ice-cream sundae versions. Click here for a 10 minute Chocolate Parfait recipe  or how about a  Chocolate, Strawberry & Cookie Parfait.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1885 – The first skyscraper in America was under construction. No, it wasn’t in New York. The ten-story (138 feet [42 m]) Home Insurance Building was located on the corner of LaSalle and Adams in Chicago, IL.

♥~1941 – Cheerioats, a ready-to-eat oat cereal, was introduced by General Mills. The name of the cereal was changed to Cheerios in 1945.

♥~ 1955 – Jockey Willie Shoemaker rode the legendary Swaps to a win in the Kentucky Derby in Louisville. The Run for the Roses was worth $108,400. (Swap’s colt, Chateaugay, would win the 1963 Derby with the exact same time as his daddy’s: 2 minutes, 1-4/5 seconds.) This was Shoemaker’s first Derby win. He would win again in 1959 aboard Tommy Lee and in 1965 on Lucky Debonair.

♥~ Law Day:  In 1957 Dwight D. Eisenhower declared May 1 to be Law Day, U.S.A. Law Day was originally the idea of Charles S. Rhyne, Eisenhower’s legal counsel for a time, who was serving in 1957-1958 as the president of the American Bar Association

♥~ 1967 – Elvis Presley got hitched to a girl he had dated since his army days in West Germany. Elvis and Priscilla Beaulieu married in Las Vegas, NV. The wedding cake, incidentally, cost $3,500. The marriage lasted until 1973

♥~ 1979 – Elton John became the first pop star to perform in Israel. In three weeks time he also became the first Western solo pop performer to tour Russia.

♥~ 1991 – As a Texas Ranger against Toronto, Nolan Ryan pitched his seventh career no-hitter.

★~Born Today:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/z8jGFu7ys64[/youtube]

♥~ 1939 – Judy Collins singer: Both Sides Now, Amazing Grace, Send In the Clowns

♥~ 1967 – Tim McGraw singer: Welcome to the Club; LPs: Tim McGraw, Not a Moment too Soon, Everywhere, Place in the Sun

♥~ 1983 – Jennifer Ellison actress: Brookside, The Godfather, The Commander: Abduction, The Phantom of the Opera

★~ Good to Know: 

Mary Had a Little Lamb was inspired by a little girl named Mary Sawyer who”¦ yes, you guessed it ““ owned a pet lamb. Her mischievous brother, suggested that she take the lamb to school with her one day. How the poem came about (it was a poem before it became a song and a nursery rhyme) is debated. As an adult, Mary recalled that a young man was visiting the classroom that day with his uncle, the Reverend Lemuel Capen. He witnessed the entire Lamb Incident and thought it was so funny that he wrote Mary a little poem and gave it to her the next day. The first time it was published, though, it was credited to Sarah Josepha Hale. Some people think the first half of the poem was written as Mary Sawyer suggested, and Sarah Hale added the rest when she published Poems for our Children in 1830.

Jack and Jill: The best interpretation seems to be the one that says Jack and “Gill” are units of measurement. King Charles I tried to change the taxes on liquid measures so that people would receive less but be taxed the same. A “Jack” was a half pint and a “Gill” was a quarter pint. Another interpretation suggests that Jack and Jill actually represent the beheadings of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, which makes sense ““ “Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after,” until you recite the second verse to the rhyme. Louis XVI definitely did not get up and trot home “as fast as he could caper; and went to bed to mend his head with vinegar and brown paper.”

Jack Be Nimble:  When the rhyme popped up somewhere around 1815, jumping candlesticks was something of a superstition. If you could hop over it without putting the flame out, you were guaranteed to have good luck.

Three Blind Mice:  One theory says this awful little ditty is based on the  horrific deeds of Bloody Mary, AKA Queen Mary I of England. In her efforts to restore England to Catholicism, she had hundreds of people burned at the stake and otherwise tortured and maimed. This included two bishops and an archbishop, later referred to as the Oxford Martyrs. The men that might have been the inspiration behind this rhyme.

#

I thought this was amusing—In Toronto, Canada you must not Hop on Pop!  Someone Asked The Toronto Public Library To Remove ‘Hop On Pop’ Because It Promotes Violence Against Dads .

Wishing everyone a most Marvelous May Day!  Why not buy yourself some flowers?

[youtube]http://youtu.be/UZA4jnvdYog[/youtube]

♥