Photo by Susan Crossett

I always felt very fortunate one of the homes I had in Warren came with a lovely neighbor.

Whoops! Let me rephrase that. At every home — anywhere — I have found marvelous friends and neighbors. But Adele was one step up. Besides a personality that bubbled, she had a way with flowers that put the rest of us to shame.

Her abilities were obvious the first time I discovered a May Day basket hanging from the knob on my front door. I don’t know if this tradition was new to me then or not. The unexpected gift certainly warmed me.

Now, decades later, I’m turning to the computer to learn more about May Day and the many associations we have with it. Many? How about three?

“Mayday! Mayday!” It’s a familiar call of distress. But that comes from the French “m’aider” meaning “help me.” Good to know, but not what I have in mind just now.

May first is an important day for the observation of labor rights, a date shared with International Workers’ Day since the 1880s. That particular date was chosen because it was the anniversary of Chicago’s Haymarket Affair when police fired first on a peaceful protest crowd, killing four.

Certainly worthy of remembrance as is “Mayday!” but my hope is to concentrate on the happier stuff starting with that May basket after reminding one and all that May is considered an unlucky month for weddings and for washing blankets. The latter superstition can still be found in parts of southwest Britain: “Wash a blanket in May; Wash a dear one away.”

“Polydore Virgil says that the Roman youths used to go into the fields and spend the [first days] of May in dancing and singing in honour of Flora, goddess of fruits and flowers. The English celebrated May-day with games and sports, particularly archery and Morris dancing and the setting up of the Maypole. In due time Robin Hood and Maid Marian came to preside as Lord and Lady of the May, and by the 16th century May-day was Robin Hood’s day and Robin Hood plays became an integral part of the festivities.”

I do remember Bryn Mawr had students dancing round a Maypole and even found an old postcard of the act dated 1924.

“Dancing round the Maypole on May-Day, ‘going-a-Maying,’ electing a May Queen and lighting bonfires, are all ancient relics of nature-worship. . . On the first May morning people went ‘a-maying’ to fetch fresh flowers and branches of hawthorn (hence its name may) to decorate their houses, and the fairest maid of the locality was crowned ‘Queen of the May.’ ”

While the baskets in an earlier time were frequently used by young men to court their love (hang the basket, knock and run away), it was considered bad luck to be spotted, even worse, I’m sure, to find another’s basket already hanging there.

Once Europe became “Christianized,” the more raucous aspects were toned down though the Maypole dance and May baskets happily survived . . . “in a more G-rared form.”

Sadly, the lovely traditions associated with the first of May have pretty much disappeared. Like the flowers, I read the traditions “began to wilt and droop.” An A.P. reporter noted seeing very few May baskets by 1963. In 1976 a household hint adviser suggested making baskets from plastic bottles, a death knell if ever there was one.

Among the notes I uncovered was this of special local interest: “In Dunkirk, N.Y., the Evening Observer observed on April 30, 1931, that young people were collecting samples from wallpaper dealers and ‘creating baskets of all sorts and varieties as to size, shape, and color, and will hang them on the doors of their friends at dusk on May Day.’ ” I wonder why it was moved to late afternoon.

“Whatever the case, Madonna Dries Christensen, a writer in Florida, is not totally sure she wants the habitual ritual to flourish again. ‘I harbor a fear that some major company will rediscover May Basket Day and mar its simplicity with commercial baskets, cards and trinkets,’ . . To ward off that calamity, please do not share this . . . with anyone who might be in cahoots with such a manufacturer.”

I, for one, would welcome the return of such a lovely tradition.

Susan Crossett has lived outside Cassadaga for more than 20 years. A lifetime of writing led to these columns as well as two novels. Her Reason for Being was published in 2008 with Love in Three Acts following in 2014. Both novels are now available at Lakewood’s Off the Beaten Path bookstore. Information on all the Musings, her books and the author may be found at Susancrossett.com.