https://40percentgerman.com/home/2024/5/3/when-the-maibaum-falls
"For almost 90 years, my home town spent the annual May Day public holiday
transporting and carefully setting up the same maypole. Three generations
essentially watched an identical process play out, as Lederhosen-clad men
hoisted the roughly 38 meter pole into its mooring, secured it in place, and
then celebrated the achievement with copious amounts of beer and, more often
than not, Wurst. Although the traditional Maibaum has a finite life cycle, ours
could easily have lasted decades longer, its sturdiness never in question, even
when it gave the occasional disconcerting wobble when the wind caught it.
Sadly, all good things do eventually come to an end, and it was with no little
sadness that in 2021, locals awoke to find the pole lying on the road, in two
very broken pieces.
Those periodic wind-based wobbles had actually been a warning, rather than a
natural part of erecting what amounts to a very large stick in the ground. A
vicious storm, one of many faced by our Maibaum over the years, had finally
taken its toll on the pole and it had come loose and collapsed in the middle of
night. Luckily no one had been physically hurt, but everyone in the town felt
some small amount of sadness that a bit of local tradition was gone. Some
assembled to say one final goodbye to the old pole after it was cleared from
the road and placed in the car park near the Rathaus by the volunteer fire
brigade. It may not have been the most honourable end for such a venerable
object, but it was as good a place as any for it to be picked up and disposed
of.
It may seem a little ridiculous that people would feel sad about the passing of
a glorified inanimate object, but that’s the thing about traditions: they don’t
always make sense from the outside. I must admit, when I first moved to
Bavaria, I wasn’t prepared for the amount of traditions I would have to
acknowledge, even if I wasn’t an active participant. There’s religious
processions, where supposed saintly relics are still paraded through the
streets, Fasching festivals with costumes and masks made decades before, and
particular seasonal recipes, usually involving Spargel, that have been made by
families for what could well be centuries. “The past is a foreign land” said
L.P. Hartley, but in the south of Germany, that foreign land is a frequent
holiday destination."
Via Christoph S.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
