Thursday, May 1, 2014

Wondering About May Day.

Today is May 1st.  Officially a holiday, May Day.  When I hear the words may day, I think of it as a distress signal, which it actually is.  The holiday of flowers and dancing around the maypole is a long way from the distress signal, which came from the French word m'aider.  Why m'aider?  Because "venez m'aider" means "come help me".  Well, that is the best explanation I can come up with.

There was something that appeared first on this day back in 1840 that changed things and we still use it today.  It was "The Black Penny".  No, it wasn't a dirty old penny but a new type of postage stamp.  It was the world's first adhesive postage stamp issued by Great Britain and it had a face value of one penny.
 
 
And this is the press it was printed on:
 
So, I guess we have been licking stamps for many, many years until the new self adhering, non-licking stamps appeared.  So, now you know a little bit more about mayday and the first adhesive postage stamp.  So, you all have a great May Day, you hear?




8 comments:

  1. May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii. All through my school years we had a Hawaiian pageant on the 1st of May, well when we moved the California they stopped... :-)

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    1. May Day is celebrated in many countries of the world. I wonder why it stopped when you moved to the mainland?

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  2. When I was a kid, classmates in my school would decorate baskets with ribbons and flowers.. I don't remember what they did with them... just remember the pretty colors. No May pole or anything... hmmm... now you got me wondering....

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    1. I don't every remember celebrating May Day in school when I was a kid. It sounds like you had fun with the flowers and ribbons and such. But no pole? I guess you didn't do a pole dance then (grin).

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  3. We got to hold long streamers and dance around a flag pole,, this was in grades 1-3. Don't remember anything later.

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    1. As I said above, don't remember ever celebrating it.

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  4. I can remember dancing around the maypole when I was a kid! Dang, I haven't thought of that for years!

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    1. It is always great to remember childhood memories and I was glad I could help you remember.

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