Good-bye to folklore, and good-bye through folklore!

"Every exit is an entry somewhere else." ~Tom Stoppard

It's the final day for many of my classes, including folklore, and this is likely to be my final post in this blog. I've enjoyed the experience and hope to continue to develop my skills in identifying and interpreting folklore in American culture. Already I've noticed quite a few folkloric traditions going on around campus in conjunction with the final day of the semester at BYU. Read through and see if you agree with me that any combination of these items is a sure-fire sign that the semester has come to its conclusion.

1. Food. Many people are walking around with plates of cookies, brownies, lasagna, what-have-you desserts. I can only assume that every class at BYU has decided to have an end-of-the-semester party on the final day of classes. It's a pretty common thing for language classes, I know. Almost every Spanish class I've taken has ended with a fiesta. This semester my Spanish 311 class ended on Tuesday, and we all brought something to eat. Two of the students served missions in Spain and brought Spanish desserts: Arroz con leche (Rice, milk, and sugar) and, of course, the famous flan. They were both delicious, but almost overwhelmingly sweet. I was thankful for the regular carrots and pretzels brought by another classmate and myself.

2. Professors crying! Typically women professors, but I have seen men professors do it too. They may do it while they're bearing their testimony, or talking about how young and bright we students are, or just getting emotional about the topic they're teaching. One thing is sure: You definitely know that it's the final day of class when your professor is crying...

3. Students leaving class and NOT saying, "See you later!" It's almost hard to think of what to say if you aren't having the final in the same classroom together. "Good luck!" seems vague. "Have a great Christmas!" is a little brusque. "Good luck with finals!" is probably the most commonly acceptable phrase, but, then, of course, it's cliché. Oh well.

4. Singing "God Be With You Til We Meet Again" for the opening/closing hymn. I've heard it twice for religion classes already, and it makes me feel uneasy and sort of guilty. It's as if they're trying to make us forget how crazily excited we are at the chance to be FINISHED with school, just by sobering us down and forcing us to be sad and all nostalgic...

5. Clapping for the professor. This is typically only done in the big freshman classes, like American Heritage, but I like the tradition and so have tried to initiate it in smaller classes, like Spanish 311 for instance. It's nice to let the professor know he or she has your respect and appreciation, even if it does seem a bit of a formality.

Feel free to write in the comments if you come up with any more traditions you think may be lurking around in this category. On that note, I'd like to let everyone who has commented know that I have really have greatly appreciated all the comments. Thanks a lot for your support and interest in my doings as a college student here at the Y! And if by chance you've become addicted to my flawless writing style and charismatic sense of humor, don't worry. I'll be starting another blog next winter while I'm completing a seminar and internship in Washington D.C., the great capital of this grand ol' American nation of ours. Waaaaaahooooooooo!

Top Twelve Moments in Folklore Class!

"Have you heard of the funky chicken?"~Professor Rudy

Recently, my teacher mentioned that she had a few favorite moments from the times we have shared together in folklore class. We haven't been together quite long enough to form a high context group with specific folklore items among us, but we have become comfortable enough with each other to be able to share some funny and interesting moments together. Her comment inspired me to make my own list of my most memorable moments in our folklore class.

1. The day we studied folklore songs and listened to a tape recording of "Babes in the Woods," and made fun of it after class to such an extent that I couldn't think of any other song all day. Aaraaaargh!

2. The day someone mentioned there being a Seinfield episode all about bad Indian proverbs, causing me to spend several fruitless hours searching through their archives in hopes of finding it.

3. The day we listened to taped sleepover stories in class, after which I confirmed my childhood suspicion that these stories were not only too often nasty and untrue, but could be incessantly repetitive and tedious.

4. The day we watched almost all of the Disney version of Johnny Appleseed! I had never seen it before, but became an instant fan.

5. The day we watched some of American Tongues, a video about various American dialects of English, and one which I had already seen in English Language 322 that semester. It's a great video, and I really enjoyed seeing it twice to pick up on things that I had missed the first time.

6. The food presentation days were very fun; I can't pretend to have the necessary skills to rank our groups, but I will say that I was very impressed with the Potato, Peanuts, and Pineapple groups; I learned more about the food group from their brief, colorful, outlined presentation than I learned from any of the food groups we had to read about in the book. Packaging truly does make a difference! (As does the letter "P," it would seem - my own group, Peaches, also did quite well, I think)

7. The day we watched a movie about home movies: I've always loved looking back at our old home movies from the 1950s, and wish that Mom and Dad would have made some of us as kids. Oh well, we still have plenty of pictures and room on our digital cameras for movies. There's something really neat about seeing the way a regular American family lived some 50 years ago. It's like time travel!

8. The day we all came up with short family stories, wrote inventive titles on the board, and told a select few by popular class request. I wrote "Lost" for my title, but I think now I could have been a little more creative - maybe something more like "Possible encounter with one of the 3 Nephites!" The stories that were told were pretty fun, though. My favorite was that of a boy who wrote "Mom and the elephant" (interestingly enough, there was another story called "Mom and the kangaroo" - we never did find out what it was): Apparently his family went on a vacation to the other side of the world, where they rode elephants. While they were standing on the ground, however, a guide stood behind the boy's mother and made gestures for the elephant to put his trunk between her legs and lift her up. She didn't notice until she was in the air screaming!

9. This happened on many days: I will always remember my teacher asking for a tall volunteer to put the projector cord over the whiteboard so she won't have to write around it. I'll also always remember her writing the phrases "Folklore = the study of tradition," "Esoteric/Exoteric factor," and "Twin laws" on the white board. She also always made a very useful list of our reading and writing assignments for next day's class on one end of the board.

10. The day I purposely changed where I sat to see if and how it would affect the way other people sat: THREE PEOPLE MOVED, folks, thus proving my hypothesis that change brings tension and consistency provides stability...or something like that. It was just a fun little experiment.

11. The day our professor taught us what the "funky chicken" was. If you don't already know, I'm sorry. It's confidential BYU folklore. Look it up in Special Collections if you must pry.

12. The day we had to stand and sing the Cougar Fight song in class, even if the only words we knew were "Rah, rah, rah-rah-rah!" To this day, I'm not quite sure what that was all about, except to demonstrate the ignorance of the majority regarding supposedly universally "BYU" traditions.

What your doodle says about your noodle...

"Doodling is the brooding of the mind." Harper Book of Quotations

While sitting next to people in college classes for the past three years, I've noticed that everyone tends to have specific habits and patterns in the way that they take notes. Some people bend studiously over their notebooks and never look up to see if the teacher is pointing or making a facial expression (this is me in my Sis. Black's religion class; she talks fast and all of the details are fair game for the tests). Some people scribble a note or two, then wait ten minutes, then maybe write another line. Some people draw big fancy titles and headings, but keep the notes to a bare minimum. Some don't even take notes - after all, what are tape recorders, friends with laptops, and good memories for?

As I thought about the way that different people take notes, I became curious about what constitutes my own pattern of note-taking, particularly over the past semester. So I dug up my notebooks for the Fall 08 semester and looked through them to see if I could find out more about my life as a college student. I tried to be objective. I asked myself, what would an archeologist or sociologist say about me if all he or she had to look at were my college notebooks?

My conclusions:

1. Whenever I want to emphasize something important, I underline it or make a star inside a circle next to it. If it's very important, I might do both. My notebooks are literally covered in underlined words and circles with stars inside of them. Meaning I should practically be bursting with all the knowledge I've acquired, right?

2. I'm not the most consistent of note-takers. I switch pretty regularly from cursive to print (although print is much more common in all of my notes), from capital letters in the middle of sentences (not in the middle of words, thank goodness!) to lower case letters at the beginning of sentences. Insecurity, perhaps? Stupidity? An expression of defiance against "the Man"?

3. I sometimes write outside the lines. I never mean to - but it happens.

4. I like punctuation and use it a lot - semicolons, colons, commas, exclamation points, question marks, hyphens, bullet points, the works. I'll even draw a smiley face if I particularly like a quote or something.

5. Though I don't do it often, with some classes I write down verbatim "quotes" from my professor. Only when they're really too fun to forget. I'll share two quick examples from my Honors 304R film professor Darl Larsen: "I think this class is just an excuse to watch movies and talk about them." "Next time you watch a movie, think about the editing. It will drive you nuts!"

6. I tend to doodle in classes that don't require a lot of brainwork. That means I have a lot of doodles in Humanities and Folklore, and hardly any in my Religion and ELang classes. And what are these doodles of, you may ask? Many things, it turns out.
Hairstyles. Dogs. Horses. Houses. Ballet dancers (I used to take ballet and am still very fond of the grace and beauty of it). Occasionally figures that we're talking about in class (yes, I have a sketch of J. Alfred Prufrock in my Humanities notes, and a doodle of a cherry on a sundae next to my notes on the Cherry group's food presentation in Folklore class). I also draw trees, flowers, and fancily decorated cupcakes. I like things with a lot of detail in them.

7. All my notes (except for a few rare cases in ELang, where I need a pencil because I make mistakes on our exercises) are in pen. I like pen because it will last and it won't break and it's good and dark - easy to see. At the end of every semester, I like to compile all of my class notes and class assignments together in a binder, and the pen makes me feel as if my work is slightly more permanent (although, embarrassingly, the doodles are also permanent). In the future I would like to take a note-taking class offered by BYU; it might even be useful to learn some shorthand if I ever decide to take another class from the speedy talking but thoroughly engaging religion professor Susan Black.

Presenting the one and only...

"Uncle!" "Nephew!" ~Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)

It has come to my attention that there is a lot of folklore to be fleshed out with regard to my uncle, the famous "Unc." He is, as I have said, my mother's only brother, and was for a long time unmarried, which left him plenty of time to come and visit us every Christmas in our home in Georgia. Though I love all my uncles, it was always nice having a special uncle who didn't have any kids and could devote all his time to us. Until he got married, of course. But by that time we had already moved to Utah, and visiting would have been difficult anyway.

But enough of the sad times - it's time for the Potluck Unc Folklore Fest!

UNC PHOTOS

We have many photos of Unc, but I only downloaded one of him and my mom, on our most recent vacation to "The Farm," which is what we call the old house where Unc lives in Johnson City, Tennessee. Can you see the family resemblance? I wish we had pictures of Unc doing what I remember him doing when we were little - pillow fights, carrying us on his shoulders, making scary faces, etc. But I guess the standard "Cheese" and click photos are better than nothing.

UNC MEMORIES

First, here is an amusing journal entry of mine which I found from when I was ten years old:

"December 23, 1998: Unc came! He seems to be very tall to me. I feel sad that he is going away on Christmas Day, but Dad says that is what happens when you get friends (girlfriends). Yuuuuuughhhhhhheeaaiiou! Ugh. Without Unc, it wouldn't be Christmas."

Second, the most famous funny story we have regarding Unc occurred several years ago when he wrote us an email, signed his name "Unc," ran spell-check, and sent it to us, failing to notice that the computer had changed "Unc" into "Ounce." We still laugh about getting an email from someone named "Ounce" to this day.

UNC EXPRESSIONS

Unc has a very distinct Southern accent, more so than my mom, I think, and his normal voice is a rather slow, soft-spoken drawl. When he's teasing, he'll either make his voice squeaky and nasal, or low-pitched and grumbly. And no one can say these phrases exactly the way that Unc does, although we have tried.

"It IS...?"
"Who's this?"
"That's right."

UNC TRADITIONS

The "Wild Child": Just as I developed a special name for Unc, he developed a special name for me - the "Wild Child." I'm not as wild or as childish anymore, and he doesn't use it as much, but if I remind him, which I like to do for fun, he will.

Presents: When he came to visit us in Georgia, Unc always brought presents, but occasionally he would pretend to have forgotten to buy them or bring them with him. Once he managed to smuggle them into the house before I could sneak outside and rummage through the car in search of them.

Late birthday cards: Unc used to send each of the children in my family a birthday card on his or her birthday. Now, he may or may not send us a card, but if he does, we know that it will arrive late and be one of the cards that has a "Sorry I missed your birthday" theme. We keep our birthday cards and hang them up every year, and we joke that we can always tell which ones are Unc's merely by looking for a phrase like "I can't believe..." "I'm sorry..." or "I hope your birthday was..."

Phone call: Unc still calls Mama on her birthday every year, which I think is sweet. She also calls him on his birthday, and they always talk for a couple of hours.

Tricks: This is by far the most famous of the traditions associated with Unc's coming, and the one which we most looked forward to as kids when planning the visit. The idea is to stage either an elaborate, creative, and foulproof "trick," which usually ended in the form of a pillow hitting Unc, or something like that. I think it was begun by my oldest brother Joseph, but we all readily followed his lead - in fact, one year I recall Unc having to go through the routine four separate times! We keep the tricks much simpler now that we're a little older and Unc doesn't come to visit as often. An old "classic" is to have one child wait with a stack of pillows on the staircase above the front door, have another child ring the doorbell, and then drop the pillows on Unc when he walks towards the door. I tried it just last August when we visited Unc on vacation, and it worked pretty well, so I guess this trick is a definite keeper!

Completing this entry reminds me how much folklore actually has to do with people other than traditions, and why we are drawn to traditions because of the happy memories, family members, and friendships we associate with them. I can't make it possible for my children to have an "Unc" the way I did, but I will gladly share with them the memories and stories. I absolutely love Unc and can't thank him enough for making my childhood extra fun and exciting.

Christmas won't be Christmas without...FOLKLORE!

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents." ~Jo March

There are certain things I can't imagine not having at Christmastime in the Miller family. Some of them are obvious, some of them less so, but every single one of them is needed - kind of like the ingredients in Christmas cheesecake, or the individual snowflakes in a snowman, or the number of blood cells in... okay, never mind. Here's my list:

1. Unc needs to be there. Unc is my mother's only (younger) brother who lives in Tennessee. His real name is "George Valentine DeVault," which became "Val DeVault," which became "Uncle Val," from which I - I am inordinately proud of my role in this bit of family folklore - derived his famous nickname forever after: "Unc." It caught on very quickly, and now is so engrained into our family that even my mom and dad will occasionally say "Unc" rather than "Val" when he isn't there. He lives in Tennessee and used to come and visit us every year at Christmas when we lived in Georgia. He brought pound cake, he brought presents, he brought his Labrador dogs, but most importantly, he brought himself. He doesn't come anymore now that we live in Utah, and he's married, but I still miss him every year.

2. Every single decoration we own must be put up. Nothing must be allowed to languish in the closet. Old ornaments with any degree of sentimental value must be repaired and reused until they are no longer distinguishable from the tape that holds them together.

3. We must sing our traditional family program, "Walk in Sunlight," on Christmas Eve. Every member of the immediate family must be present. The large cut-out cardboard animals from my mom's ambitious days as a Primary leader must also be in attendance. Dressing up is encouraged for the kids, but no longer mandatory, I think.

4. We must watch "A Child's Christmas in Wales" on Christmas Eve before dinner. Out of all the Christmas movies I have seen, this remains my very favorite, although it may well be my associations of happy times while watching it that make it seem like such a wonderful movie to me. Whatever the case may be, I certainly intend to carry on this tradition in my family, and am fairly certain that some of my other siblings will as well.

5. We must eat the exact same meals every year on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. No alterations or variations whatsoever! And, if at all possible, there is to be no making of this food on any other day of the year - Christmas food shall come but once a year.

6. The stockings must be hung in the bedroom, or close by, and are to be filled, not with toys, but with food for Christmas lunch. This is always a special treat, as it's such fun to wake up early and guess what items will be in the stockings. From years of past experience, we have come to recognize that Santa has a few pretty regular items on the menu, but he has been known to vary it from time to time with unexpected tidbits (my very favorite year was when I got a stuffed penguin in my stocking in addition to the lunch - my, that was like Christmas morning PLUS a Tooth Fairy visit).

7. I - this is a personal issue - must wake up AT LEAST two hours in advance to 6 am, the established hour when we may all sneak upstairs to see what Santa Claus has brought. There's simply no fun at all in sleeping in late on Christmas and losing all that wonderful time of early morning anticipation. Plus when else in the day will you have time to read your scriptures, pore over the last of the Christmas books, complete the ritualistic "checking the stocking" tradition, and ooh and aah over every item and giggle with your siblings about plans for the day.

8. We do our best to watch all of our Christmas movies, but there are certain movies that absolutely MUST be watched in order to make a complete Christmas. Some of them must even be watched at a certain time. In my opinion, these are:

The King is Born (watched the Sunday before Christmas, always)
It's a Wonderful Life (watched the Friday before Christmas, always)
Miracle on 34th Street (the OLD version, usually watched just after Thanksgiving, to get us through the transition of holiday moods)
A Christmas Carol (from 1938 - despite its somewhat censored plot, the screenplay, music, and casting is so wonderful that this is is our favorite version)
The Little Drummer Boy (usually watched the second Sunday before Christmas; it never fails to make my mom cry, and last year it even made me cry, so I guess the tradition is catching on)

9. Every sibling needs to be present. With my oldest brother at Duke University, and my next oldest siblings serving missions in the past two years, it's been a long time since all of our siblings have been together. I'm looking forward to the reunion this Christmas!

10. We have to draw names of siblings, and buy the sibling a present, usually under $20. This was a much more important tradition when I was younger, and obsessed with counting the number of presents I would receive. But we still do it today, and I still like it, so there.

11. We have an empty basket which we are supposed to fill with straws ("good deeds" which we do for each other) from December 1 to cushion the basket for Baby Jesus. I'm sad to say that this tradition appears to be dwindling away, as we usually forget to put in straw or forget to do good deeds, and end up dumping in the whole bag of straw on Christmas Eve anyway. But I still think it's a cute idea, and I'd like to do it with my own children.

12. We always leave out a piece of fruit for Santa every year, by the chimney. We may leave milk, too, but it depends.

Fellow family members, feel free to add what you think needs to be added to make the perfect Miller Family Christmas ever!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!!! (Except for the turkey)

"For what we are about to eat, may the Lord may us truly thankful. Amen." ~Maria (The Sound of Music)

For the past three Thanksgivings, I have usually spent a great deal of time at the library or on the computer working on homework for my classes. This year I was lucky (or blessed) to not have any pressing assignments on Thursday. We didn't do anything particularly special until dinner (other than put up the usual Thanksgiving decorations, which rather pale in comparison with the black/orange paper chains and Japanese lanterns we usually make for Halloween, and of course, the coating of Christmas cards and paper decorations which adorn the house for the entire month of December). For our dinner, we had what we always have - turkey, gravy, rice, succotash (lima beans mixed with corn), cranberry fruit Jell-O, cornbread, green beans, and... did I forget anything? For dessert we always have pumpkin pie and whipped cream. When we lived in Georgia, we used to make our pumpkin pie from our home-grown pumpkins and whip our own whipped cream, but alas! No longer. When in Orem, do as the Oremites - go to Wal-Mart. Plus we already used up our scant supply of pumpkins for Halloween.

As we eat the Thanksgiving meal, it is a tradition for our dad to read us the slips of paper that we have written on all month, telling what we are grateful for. As he reads them, we try to guess who wrote them. It seems like a fairly predictable game at times, but I never get tired of it. And I suppose God never gets tired of hearing us say "Thank you" either.

After the Thanksgiving meal, we watched Thanksgiving movies - a later version of a Thanksgiving Waltons episode, and Happy Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown! And then pumpkin pie and whipped cream. No football, no Macy's Parade on TV, no group family pictures, but it was a lovely Thanksgiving all the same.

Reflections on the Folklore Project

"The first time I pulled an all-nighter in college was when I had to finish my folklore project for this class." ~Jill Rudy, our professor

Today the biggest assignment we will have in our American Folklore class is due: the folklore project, a collection of 10-12 folklore items in relation to a theme of our choice, and a 6-8 page cover essay analyzing and synthesizing our findings. As you can imagine, I have been rather close to the computer as of late. In addition to writing and compiling the project with a nice cover page, table of contents, and autobiographical sketch, we had to present our projects to the class. I took brief notes on the presentations, as I was interested in seeing what my classmates had chosen to study. Here's a quick run-through of the topics presented on by our class:

Americans living overseas
September 11 experiences
Experiences in a freshman dorm at BYU
Old wives' tales about cures
Stories about a secret gold mine in Utah
Versions of a story called "Taily-po"
Folklore among "World of Warcraft" players (Surprisingly very convincing and interesting approach - he even connected it to the American experience!)
Breakfast-making traditions (My friend sitting next to me did this one)
Experiences in high school
Experiences at the Jerusalem Center
Roommate horror stories (I want to read this project!)
Wisdom teeth removal stories (Another attention-grabbing one...)
Halloween costumes (My friend on the other side of me did this one)
Football traditions (Another surprisingly interesting one)
Folklore associated with the Spirit of Ricks
Engagement stories (Done by a guy! A married guy!)
Songs...(It was a rather...um...broad project)
Small town lore (This one was funny, since it turned out that two girls in the class were from the same small town being discussed: It's a small world, after all!)
American LDS Wedding Traditions (It wasn't until this moment that I realized the girl who was presenting it was married)

And finally, there was my project - Variations on Hand Actions for Latter-day Saint Primary Children's Songs. I raced through my presentation, but had a nice PowerPoint slide and got to cover a lot of what I wanted to. The project itself was surprisingly enjoyable, until it came to the last days of doing nothing but sitting in front of a computer, typing everything up. I had fun interviewing people and learned several things which surprised me in the process: First of all, there was so much variety in the actions! Everyone had small differences in their version of the basic actions, and a few people did things I never would have imagined, like coming up with a new verse to a song with complete actions.

Second, people seemed fine talking to me or even with the tape recorder present, but many got skittish when I suggested filming their actions with the camera. I ended up only videotaping four people, and two of them were related to me, so I kind of forced them into it. And I didn't even show any videos to the class - I just watched them to get material for the cover paper. I used the tape recorder for all my other interviews, and took as many notes as I could, although I had to keep talking or else they would become nervous again and stop talking... Isn't it ironic how people stop talking when you actually want them to talk, and vice versa... Ok. Never mind.

Third, a lot of people had very firm opinions about when hand actions should and should not be used, and the appropriateness of sign language, and so on. Before conducting the project, I didn't really consider what kind of opinion I had myself, or if it was even necessary for me to have one on such a relatively unimportant issue, but as I encountered so many different, firmly founded viewpoints, I soon became aware of what I did and did not like, and the issue ended up becoming important to me as well. I am a big fan of Primary song actions, and hope we always have them. I would even like to expand the number of songs with actions; that "Follow the Prophet" one would really benefit from having actions to sort out all the different verses.

You know you're Mormon if...you're Mormon

I become a little concerned when I hear people talking about traditions of a particular ward or LDS family as being part of "Mormon folklore" rather than Church-approved practice. Is it acceptable to call any tradition carried on by members of the LDS faith "Mormon folklore"? I think not. I am specifically referring here to examples such as missionary farewell parties, long, travel-log type testimonies, and disturbingly irreverent songs sung in a church setting, but I suppose this could also be applied to more positive, yet unofficial areas (roadshows... YW camp... the Blue and Gold Banquet...). The lables given to these activities ought to represent only the individuals who practice them. Of course, this brings up other problematic questions: How can we talk about "American" folklore without consulting every American? Do we create what we call our folklore or were we created by it? Where do we draw the line in separating our traditions with those of other people in our same folk group? Why? I am willing to make allowances for the sake of those who have a genuine interest in the subject, but I do hope that the day will come when we can stop hearing people characterize Mormon folklore in terms of funeral potatoes, green Jell-O, and movies like "The Singles Ward."

Stuffed Animal Folklore: It's a Whole Ne-ew World!

"Tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff..." ~The Winnie-the-Pooh song

When I was young, I absolutely loved stuffed animals. My older brother and I amassed a collection of 70 or 80 before I turned 15. We called the whole group of them "The Gang," and divided them up into several crews ("the New Recruits," "The Great Mousefighters," "Snif-Snifs," "Jack's Crew," and, yes, the oh-so-creative "Remainder of the Gang"), each of which was governed by a crew leader. The crews would occasionally play board games and have mock fights against each other, though, to be fair, my brother and I would pre-determine the match by rolling the dice. We spent so much time developing our world of stuffed animals that we did develop it into a sort of high-context group between the two of us. Another member of the family could enter in the middle of a game or a conversation and not have a clue as to who was speaking to who, or what was going on.

This was because only my brother and I knew the names, voices, and personalities of all our animals. At one point I made a notebook with pictures and information on all the animals (unfortunately, it's long outdated by now). We also had three definite accents (unofficially labled "Swa," "Berst-berst," and "Hu") which we ascribed to the different characters. We also knew which pairs of animals were best friends, or "opposites," as we called them. It was a highly structured system; every time I got a stuffed animal, he usually got one, and vice versa.

In keeping with the typical governing laws of folklore, we came to identify certain phrases and accents with certain characters; even without hearing the accent, I'm willing to wager that my brother could immediately tell you which phrase goes with which stuffed animal/doll:

"All right, fellows - gather close!"

"Is that ice cream you're hiding behind your back?"

"Now we gotta think about this real carefully."

"You can fly, you can fly, you can fly, you can fly."

"Hu-u. I don't know about this, Richard. Hu-u."

"Ya-berst!"

"Sit-ups...and push-ups! Sit-ups...and push-ups!"

"1/4 of me thinks this is a baaaaaad idea."

How about it, siblings? Can anyone besides Daniel match the correct stuffed animal to the quote?

We had traditions for the proper caring of our stuffed animals as well. For a while, we used to sleep with all of our stuffed animals once a year, on Christmas Eve. That stopped when the numbers became too great, but it's still not uncommon to choose a select few animals to snuggle up with in the holiday season. Also, for a long time, both my brother and I used to pick an animal out of the closet each morning to be our "daily companion" for that day. It would join us as we did our schoolwork, as we played computer games, as we watched movies, and as we read books. My brother's daily companion might have even slept with him, but mine usually made its way back into the closet before bedtime, as I already had my Cabbage Patch baby doll, Nancy Potter (who, by the way, has an entirely different accent from any members of "The Gang"), to sleep with in bed. We've been inseparable bedmates since 1992, after all, and I wouldn't want to hurt her feelings.

How well do you know your folklore heroes? Part 6: Johnny Appleseed

“[He] has nurtured life instead of destroying it, and has been sensitive to the beauty of this continent, and has done something to create here a civilization. Johnny Appleseed stands for ourselves at our best.” ~Charles Smart

If you haven't heard of Johnny Appleseed, welcome to America! That's about how famous the boy with the tin pot on his head and a sack of apple seeds over his shoulder has come to be as a symbol of apple-pie-lovin-America today. There have been movies, stories, tall tales, biographies, radio programs, and much much more written and told about the gentle traveler, and if I had to pick a single folklore hero whose identity has the closest connection to the look and landscape of America, it would probably be Johnny Appleseed. With that said, it's still fun to see in what ways our personal version of him differs from someone else's.

What does he look like?

Dad: He's a younger man, maybe 30ish. He wears farmer's clothing.
Mom: 40s. He's not at all athletic. He has a pot on his head and his pockets are stuffed with apples. He sings songs, he loves children, he tells stories, he's very gentle. Like a deer. He's part of nature.
Sarah: I'd say he's 16. He wears a pot on his head. He has freckles and wears overalls.
Hannah: He's either in his 60s and 70s or maybe 15. He has curly hair, he's tall and skinny, wears overalls with a patch in the knee, a frying pan on his head, and is holding an apple with a bite taken out of it.

Here's "Scrawny Johnny":

Why is he famous?

Dad: He ran around the early United States, encouraging settlers to plant apples and fruit trees.
Mom: He planted orchards everywhere. He tried to help the land, and the settlers.
Sarah: He planted a lot of trees in random places. Oregon, maybe?
Hannah: He planted a lot of apple trees all over the country.

Was he real?

Dad: I believe he was real. His name was Chapman...?
Mom: I think so. His name was John Chapman.
Sarah: I think so. Yeah.
Hannah: Yes.

John Chapman was a real person, born September 26, 1774 in Massachusetts and died sometime in the late 1840s, although the actual date and his burial site are disputed. He did not exactly scatter apple seeds everywhere, as we sometimes think, but apparently planted them in nurseries and ensured that they would be taken care of before moving on. As for the idea of him traversing across the continental United States, he really only left a lasting impact on a few Mid-Western states: mainly Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. He was a kind of preacher as well as a planter, and was known for his kindness to animals and generosity to others. It is said that he traveled with a Bible in one hand, a bag of apple seeds in the other,and a cooking pot on his head; however, I wasn't able to find any certain evidence for any of these facts, and other sources say he carried the usual tools of a woodsman. It was also said that he wore no shoes, even in winter, which possibly led to the telling of another legend where a rattlesnake tried to bite his foot and couldn't penetrate the skin. If you want to read more about the myths and realities of Johnny Appleseed, I recommend this link, as well as the ever faithful Wikipedia entry. And I recommend watching the Disney version, too, just because it's fun.

Confession of an A-anxious student

"Please sir, I want an A!" Oliver Twist (when he got into college)

Before moving on to the creation of more exciting blog entries, I need to take care of an item of business. One stipulation of the folklore almanac is that we must account for any absences from class, and while I've been pretty faithful about attending all of my classes; in fact, other than this absence, I can only think of one day that I've missed in one class out of all of the classes of all the semesters of all the years I've been at BYU! It was a Spanish 105 class, in case you were curious, and I didn't feel too bad since 1) the class met every day, 2) I made it to every other class, and 3) as I recall, I had a whopper of a Geography assignment to complete that day.

Anyway, I did miss one day in folklore class - Nov 10 - the day when "Family Expressions and Customs" was discussed. It's really too bad because I enjoyed reading the section about expressions and customs in the book, and it would have been fun to share and listen to what the class members had to say. Still, I had to make a close call between attending class and studying for the English Language 322 exam at 11 am: the one was worth a possible wealth of folklore knowledge; the other 35% of my ELang grade. It will not surprise those who you who are well acquainted with my obsession over grades to learn that I chose the latter. And by the way, the test went quite well - 49/50.

How many Nicks would a nickname name, if a nickname could name Nicks?

"Of all eloquence a nickname is the most concise: of all arguments the most unanswerable." ~William Hazlitt

It was in the news recently that special, top-secret (that's code for "cool") nicknames have been decided upon for the family of our new president-elect. In case you were under a rock that day, aren't American, don't visit yahoo.com on a daily basis, or forgot (me!), here are the nicknames, and my brief commentary:

Barack Obama = Renegade. I have mixed feelings. On one hand, it seems all rebellious and tough and Robin Hood-like, which is really attractive and nifty; but on the other, it makes me think of an irresponsible teenager, like Aladdin, for example, running around and being scolded by his elders. "That renegade lad will come to no good!" they say, wagging their heads wisely.

Michelle Obama = Renaissance. A nice name. However, I would have preferred "Revolution," seeing as this is America, and not Italy.

Malia Obama = Radiance. Ok. But why leave it at that, I ask? Why not Radium, Radiation, or Radioactivity? Or, in another direction, we could go with Refulgence, Resplendence, and Righteousness.

Sasha Obama = Rosebud. This one is my favorite. Remember the sled? No, of course not, all you remember are those big rubbery lips.

I rather like the "R" theme - it is such a nice letter, after all (wink, wink) - but the idea of giving important people nicknames does seem a little silly. After all, what's the use of having a secret name if everyone knows it? And, on the flip side, what's the use of having a secret ultra-cool name if no one knows it?

But all of this is beside the point, which is folklore. The nicknames we choose and use obviously can say a great deal about what we think of other people, and how we prefer to be thought of. You are free to think whatever you choose in regard to the nicknames chosen for our new President's family.

And now I have a few nicknames of my own to share:

Rufie - My favorite nickname. I'm not sure where it came from, but it's easy to say and sounds very babyish, so perhaps my younger sisters made it up when they were saying my name as babies? I like it ever so much better than "Ruthie," which makes me sound like I am 7 years old and wear a pinafore and pink bows in my hair.

Vue - I absolutely hate this nickname, primarily because of the tone and manner in which my sister used to say it to me when she was mad at me. It grates my ears just to remember it.

Bobba Oofa - Babyspeak for "Baby Ruth." I'm almost sure my brother Daniel came up with this name when we were palling around in the good old days, when we wore animal slippers and drove around in a cute green train and yellow caboose.

Cupcake - My mother calls me this, since she says I remind her of Irene in the William Steig book, Brave Irene (which has since become one of my very favorite books). She only ever calls me it when I give her a good-night kiss and call her by my special name for her, which I'm going to keep a secret.

Ruthena - This is a recently acquired nickname, on account of my appreciation for Greek mythology and the opportunity I had to visit the replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee, last August. My sister-in-law, Kirsti, who is quite talented in the area of nickname creation, came up with it in one of our numerous, nickname-laced emails to each other, and I have been fond of it ever since.

Though I don't count this as a nickname, the most common title by which I am hailed in our household, by far, is "Ru" - assumedly because my family is too lazy to complete the sound of my 1-syllable name. I bear no ill will towards the name, but I do insist on spelling it with a 'u' rather than an 'oo,' lest people confuse me with a certain small marsupial in a blue sweater.

An apple is an apple is an apple is an apple

"One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating." ~Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, Pavarotti, My Own Story

In folklore class, we have been discussing the significance of food in American culture. We have made some rather impressive connections - everything from the apple demonstrating themes of innocence and guilt to cranberries equalizing Yankee ingenuity to tobacco representing the essence of hip pop culture. I've found our discussions and the connections made in the readings to be fascinating, but at the same time, I'm a little skeptical about the actual connections for the average American. After all, an apple is just an apple, right? Do regular people really share common values with regard to such ordinary foods? Do they attach any kind of meaning to food?

I asked my brother and sister to tell me the first American theme or connection they would think of when I said the following words. I wasn't looking for deep analysis, just any first impressions or symbolic connections which they might think exist. Here are the results:

Apple

My sister: Johnny Appleseed, health
My brother: Apple pie, Washington State (they grow a lot of apples)

Peach

My sister: It just sort of represents the South.
My brother: Georgia, the Peach State

Orange

My sister: Health again, they're good for you.
My brother: I just know they're grown in Florida and California... They used to be a treasured present, like in the days of Laura Ingalls Wilder, but not anymore.

Banana

My sister: It's a safe food, for everyone; variety - it can be green or mushy; it's good for sick people and well people; they're easy to chew.
My brother: Comedy - you can trip on one. The thought of a walking banana is funny. They're mushy and slippery.

Surprisingly, my brother hit on the same theme mentioned in Rooted in America, our folklore textbook, regarding bananas. The connection between comedy and America is a little more difficult to do on the spot, but the book manages to fudge it rather well. Overall, though, I would hesitate to say that there's anything particularly American about a single food. "As American as apple pie" may be a popular expression, but the truth is that apple pies have been in Europe since the Middle Ages. As for peaches, I learned in my food group presentation that Georgia and the rest of United States produces nowhere near the amount of peaches produced in China. Oranges are healthy, sure, but so are most fruits and vegetables. And the connection between health and America is getting harder to justify as the years go by. If the day ever comes when Americans will be forced to choose between chips and oranges, I shudder to think what will happen to our sense of identity.

In conclusion, I suppose the one lesson we can learn from this experiment is that bananas are funny. Anyone who disagrees is probably a Communist.

How well do you know your folklore heroes? Part 5: John Henry

"A hero is not measured by the size of his strength, but by the strength of his heart." ~Disney's Hercules

I had read the folktale of John Henry when I was a little girl, but didn't really remember the specific details until I looked it up again online (and of course, watched the Disney version for the first time). I knew he was a big huge muscular black man, supposedly born with a hammer in his hand, that he worked on the railroad, and that he had a race with a train and the effort killed him but he won the race. That was it. A simple, straightforward tall tale, with one whopper of a motif ("born with a hammer in his hand") right up front to let you know that it was all baloney. Or so I thought.
What does he look like?

Dad: Wasn't he Paul Bunyan's brother? He was probably Caucasian. A big muscular guy.
Mom: Maybe in his 30s, maybe 40s. A big muscular man, with a sledgehammer in his hand.
Sarah: 30. He's a black man. He has a light blue, faded shirt, and carries a hammer.
Hannah: I've never heard of John Henry!

Why is he famous?

Dad: I don't know why.
Mom: He was a railroad man.
Sarah: He beat a machine drilling into the mountain, then he died.
Hannah: I don't know.

Was he real?

Dad: Not real.
Mom: He probably was.
Sarah: I think so...yeah.
Hannah: I don't know.

The legend of John Henry is pretty straightforward, just like the version I related earlier. He was an African-American steel-driver, who challenged a steam-powered drill to a race, won, and then died of exhaustion. The actual existence of John Henry is trickier. There are a couple of theories that say he was born in Missouri in the 1840s or 50s, and then worked for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. If he wasn't a real man, it's difficult to say where the legend originated from, since all sources claim that he was. The episode with the steam-power drill, if it happened, is rumored to have taken place in both West Virginia and Alabama. Talcott, West Virginia still holds "John Henry Days" every year on the weekend after the Fourth of July. Perhaps I'd better start encouraging my own family to participate, at least until we can all give the same answers on these questions!

Well, Jacko-my-lantern and Hallo-me-ween, it's October 31st!

"Why didn't the skeleton cross the road? He didn't have the guts!" ~Cheesy Halloween joke

I love celebrating Halloween, especially the part of it I spend at BYU in the morning. When else do you see your professors wearing such things as clown wigs, black capes, and wild, funky ties? When else is it acceptable to paint whiskers on your face and wear those dumb cat-ear headbands to school? When else are there free doughnuts, apple cider, pizza, and hot chocolate all over campus? I tried to record some folkloric items with regard to the way we celebrate Halloween, and this is what I came up with:

1. Tricks

Tricks are acceptable and even desirable, perhaps even to a greater extent than on April Fool's Day. After all, the appeal of being able to play a trick while eating candy and wearing a cape and mask is not to be taken lightly. Also, consider the diversity of stock Halloween 'gotcha' sayings: there's "BOO!" "Trick or treat," a witch's cackle, a scary scream, a howling werewolf sound, "Whooooo" (owl) and "Ooooooooo," (ghost) to name a few, while the only standard prank-saying on April Fool's Day is just, well, "April Fool's." The best (fun, not mean) trick that I observed at BYU was on the fourth floor of the Joseph F. Smith Building, where some ingenious person had replaced all of the professor's names on their office doors with orange/black cards bearing the names of characters, real and fictional. Our petite, demure folklore professor got the name "Cruella DeVil." Dallin Oaks, my knowledgeable and exciting Linguistics professor from last spring, was "Lex Luthor." A few other names I remember seeing were "Judge Judy," "Darth Maul," "Sauron," "Paris Hilton," "The Wicked Witch of the West," and several actual (but dead) philosophers in the philosophy department - "Nietzsche" and "Freud" specifically. The American Studies office, where I often work, was the "Underworld Studies" office. I thought this trick was a stroke of real genius, and I hope it becomes a regular tradition, much like the cute red and white stockings put on all the professor's doors on the third floor of the JFSB in December. I think even the Halloween costumes can be seen as a type of joke; imagine someone dressing up as something completely unexpected or out of character, for instance, or something ridiculous just to make people stare and laugh because of the absurdity. Which brings me to the next item.

2. Costumes

While a few BYU students wear green on St. Patrick's Day or red/pink on St. Valentine's Day, by far the biggest "dress-up" day for all of the school year is Halloween, and it can get pretty extreme too. Everything except for masks, which are apparently evil or scary or something. A lot of my teachers dressed up, which made me smile. One wore a long black cape and gave a lecture on horror films that day. He kept playing with his cape while he was talking, and it made me want to laugh so hard. Then he showed part of "The Ring" (which I have never seen) and I was too scared to keep my eyes open for the entire clip. Another one of my teachers dressed up as a student, which was pretty daring for her, since she's usually wearing very proper, business-like attire. She was wearing blue jeans, a casual (but still rather plain and old-fashioned)shirt, and - the best part - a pair of earphones and an ipod hanging around her neck. The girl who sits in front of me in that class was dressed up as a cat, with black clothes, a headband with ears, markered-on whiskers, and maybe even a tail or something. I saw a lot of girls wearing boots and cowboy hats - it's a relatively normal, safe costume. One girl's costume really took me by surprise: She was obviously pregnant, and wearing a shirt with skeleton bones painted on it, and a little skull where the baby's head was supposedly residing. It looked...very strange. The funnest people were the ones wearing the most clothes, or the most color. I did see one scary looking "Joker" (from The Dark Knight) wandering around. And there was another guy who was wearing the entire brown, cloak and hood garb of a monk! I'm pretty sure he was also wearing a cross. And I can't remember whether or not he had shaved his hair...but I was impressed, notwithstanding. I never wear a costume to school, but did have fun fashioning one to wear after I got home. I was "Princess Mononoke" from the title character of the Hayao Miyazaki film. Anything involving strong, limber women with warpaint on their faces is a strong, definite interest for my choice of costumes on Halloween, as other members of my family can tell you.

3. Food

Specifically candy. Specifically chocolate... Our family has a special meal for Halloween dinner: grapes, hamburgers with white melted cheese (we call them "Hamburger Spooks," since we get to make faces on the white cheese with black olives, and it looks kind of like a ghost), vegetables, tortilla chips and cheese dip, and orange sherbet floats. When we were little, my mom tried a couple of varieties on the Halloween dinner, but in time we whittled it down to these essentials. Oh, and did I mention candy? We're too old to go trick or treating now, but always manage to come up with something nevertheless, from school or a church activity or whatever.

4. Movies

I don't know how it started, but we always have to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," and "The Wizard of Oz" on Halloween night. I like it, but it is starting to feel a bit tiresome (kind of like our now-gone tradition of watching "A Thanksgiving Story" by the Waltons every year; once we were able to quote the movie back to back, we decided it just wasn't worth it anymore), so I'm thinking of proposing a switch-up for next year. What does everyone think of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"? I mean, it's got songs, candy, dressed-up people, and very frightening moments (sudden interruption of happy music by appearance of creepy stranger, nightmarish boat rides, and near death by inflation, suffocation, execution, and minimization, anyone?). Just think about it, okay?

How well do you know your folklore heroes? Part 4: Paul Bunyan

He's sixty three axe handles high/With his feet on the ground and his head in the sky/Hey, Paul/Paul Bunyan! ~"The Ballad of Paul Bunyan," Paul Bunyan (1958)

When I first got the idea for doing a series of blog entries like this, Paul Bunyan was one of the first folkloric characters that came to mind. Who hasn't heard of the humongous loggerman and his gigantic blue ox? There have been many stories, movies, and monuments made in the name of Paul Bunyan since he originated in the 19th century (apparently from lumber camp tales). The Walt Disney version from 1958 is especially cute, claiming that Babe and Paul formed the Land of 10,000 Lakes (a nickname for Minnesota) by making tracks that filled with water, built Pikes Peak so they could look the country over "and see what else to do." Since my own image of Paul Bunyan was well established (red-checked shirt, blue jeans, dark brown beard but no mustache, ax, ox), I was hoping for a lot of conformity and uniformity in the answers of the family members I interviewed. However, they had a few surprises for me...

What does he look like?

Dad: He's in his 20s. He's a giant. I think he has an ax. He's hyper-masculine, but not really handsome; unshaven, spitting tobacco. He had a pet bull.
Mom: He's in his 20s, or early 30s. He's cleanshaven, very muscular, with dark hair, big toothy grin, like Elvis. He carries a big ax.
Sarah: I think he's 35. He has dark hair and a light beard. He wears a red-checked shirt, blue jearns with suspenders, a cowboy hat, and he carries an ax.
Hannah: He's in his 40s. Very tall. He has an ax and an ox - Babe the Blue Ox.

After some Google Imaging, I have concluded that the issue of Paul Bunyan's facial hair is not easily solved. There are many of that which I consider the "classic" type, which is shown in the picture above. Here's a cute one of him looking like a garden gnome. Also note that Babe looks like a cross between a cuddly lamb and a loyal hound dog.

And another one - cleanshaven/teenager Paul!

Why is he famous?

Dad: He does impossible feats. He's like the American Hercules. He cut a lot of wood.

Mom: He was a lumberjack. I think he was from the Northwest - Oregon, Washington. He supposedly made the Grand Canyon. The land is supposed to look the way it does because of him - he made mountains and valleys.

Sarah: He had a blue bull. He saved people and cleared a lot of land.

Hannah: He chopped down trees and was an exceptional logger.

Was he real?

Dad: He's not real.

Mom: He's not a real person.

Sarah: I don't think so.

Hannah: I don't know. The tall tales aren't real, so...no.

And now for the facts! Paul Bunyan is a fictional, legendary figure, said to be born and raised in Maine in the 19th century, although he is often associated with towns in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. There are many stories told about his unsurpassed skill as a lumberjack, as well as about the ways he formed areas like the Grand Teutons, the Missouri River, and the Great Lakes area. Babe the Blue Ox (note that ox = male bovine) is Paul Bunyan's fictional companion, whom he found nearly frozen one day, and subsequently managed to save (though the blue color never went away). I wasn't able to find any stories about the death of Paul Bunyan; the Disney short film claims he and Babe are in Alaska making the Northern Lights shimmer and flash with all their rough-housing. It would seem to be a likely spot, considering all the available pine trees for Paul to chop down and comb his beard with.

How well do you know your folklore heroes? Part 3: Pecos Bill

~"Waaaaaaahooooooooooooooooooooooo!" ~Pecos Bill

No one in my family is from west of the Mississippi originally, but I am proud to say that they had all heard of Pecos Bill and were even able to describe him with good attention to detail. I first learned about him as a kid reading stories in a Bob Jones Christian curriculum reading book, and picked up the image of him from the pictures in the book: he was young, had no mustache, blonde hair, wore a cowboy hat, a red shirt and blue jeans, carried a lasso, and rode a mustang called Widowmaker. I'd never heard of or seen any films about the life and legend of Pecos Bill, but apparently there is a film, so check it out, you Western-cowboy-folklore-lovers, you.

"I'm a ring-tailed roarer. I can draw faster, shoot straighter, ride harder and drink longer than any man alive. I ride cyclones and I wrestle... I'm the rip-snortinest cowboy that ever rode north, south, east or west of the Rio Grande. I'm Pecos Bill." ~Pecos Bill (Tall Tale, 1995)

What does he look like?

Dad: He's 25. A cartoon character - big cowboy hat, bowlegged, always riding big animals.

Mom: Maybe in his 40s. Has a pistol in each hand. A big handle-bar mustache. Wild dark eyes.

Sarah: 40. He has a long mustache, a cowboy hat, a lasso. I picture him as being short.

Hannah: He's in his 30s. Has a mustache, a cowboy hat, cowboy get-up - you know, plaid shirt, boots, spurs, chaps. He also has a horse, Widow Maker.

Why is he famous?

Dad: I really don't know.

Mom: He was in the Pony Express. He's associated with the Wild West, the Indian wars.

Sarah: I don't know. He's a tall tale. He lassoed a whirlwind.

Hannah: I dunno. He's just a tall tale. I think he caught a gang of criminals.

Was he real?

Dad: No.

Mom: I don't know. Probably.

Sarah: No. I don't think so.

Hannah: No. Maybe. Well, he probably was.

"Just 'cause it's a tall tale don't mean it ain't true." ~Jonas Hackett (Tall Tale, 1995)

Pecos Bill, alas, was not a real person. He is a legendary cowboy of the American West, said to have lived in the region of Texas and New Mexico in the late 19th century (he was first written about in 1923 by Edward O’Reilly). Pecos, New Mexico, and the Pecos river are named after him. There are many tall tales about the superhuman strength of Pecos Bill: he was raised by coyotes, he used a rattlesnake for a whip, he wrestled with bears, and he could lasso and ride anything under the sun, including a cyclone, a mountain lion, and a wild horse named Widow Maker which he tamed. I wasn't able to find any references of him fighting Indians, working in the Pony Express, or catching criminals, but keep searching! There's also a very nice website here with lots of stories, one of which claims that he died at a ripe old age in New Mexico. The site is also an excellent example of how the tall tale should be told, i.e. in a twangy Texan accent.

What do you think is in my treasure box?

"Treasure your relationships, not your possessions." Anthony J. D'Angelo

Believe it or not, I have a treasure box. It actually belonged to my aunt, who passed it along to my oldest brother, who let me use it after he became "too old" for such things. After using it for a while I gradually began to think of it as my own, and then one day I decided it was mine. No one has disputed it since.

The treasure box is pretty full with all sorts of miscellaneous paraphenalia, and I became curious while we were studying folk objects in class about whether or not any of the items in my treasure box would qualify as a folk object. In evaluating my treasure box items, I tried to ask myself the following questions: 1) What is it? 2) Why did I put in the treasure box originally? and 3) Am I going to throw it out, and if not, why?

And now for the inventory - there were so many items that I decided to only pick 10:

1. A broken red ball. It belonged to Kim, our first cat in Georgia who was hit and killed by a motorist. I keep it to remember her.

2. A white ribbon. I got it from a grad school student who substituted as a teacher for one of my classes one time, and I thought he was kind of cute, so I held onto it because...wow, it seems really stupid now.

3. A home-made paper fan, so old it's practically falling part. It was one of the first Christmas crafts I ever made, and I thought it was absolutely beautiful, so I held onto it. I don't think it's so beautiful anymore, but I hang onto it because I always have. It's tradition, y'know?

4. Three green straws. I have no idea. I'll probably keep them just because I might someday remember why I put them there.

5. A bookmark of the Atlanta Georgia temple. It's one of my very favorite temples, more for sentimental reasons than for its actual beauty. It was the first temple I went to after turning 12, and of course, I associate it with the South and with Georgia, which I love. Oddly enough, I never use it as an actual bookmark. It just sits in my treasure box, gathering dust. Hmmm...

6. Two or three necklaces/bracelets I made at Girl's Camp. They still have dust and dried dirt on them, but I think they're pretty nifty. And I may want to wear some dirt, dusty looking jewelry someday.

7. A rock from our yard in Georgia. It's a pretty red rusty color, and reminds me of home. I also have rocks from other places, probably in Utah, but I can't remember where or why I collected them. They're gray; some are rough, some are smooth. None of them has any real significance to me.

8. A long, colorful string tied in a knot. I found it somewhere and decided to put it in a place where I could always find it quickly when I wanted to play string games; I really like string games - they're fun.

9. A picture I drew of a butterfly and the signature of my oldest brother on a piece of paper. These items are special because I made them/got them on the day that my brother left for the MTC. It was really hard for me when he left, and I cried a lot. It may seem weird, but having his signature and a picture made him feel closer to me at the time. Now I just keep them for the memory.

10. Two marbles - one is brown and one is white with confetti-like colored dots on it. My best friend in Georgia, Emily Niedfeldt, gave them to me on the last day that we saw each other before my family moved to Utah. I will always keep these in my treasure box in memory of our friendship and of that day. I can vividly remember the scene and the tears I shed afterwards, and even now, those marbles can make me choke up if I stare too long at them. Fortunately, Emily and I have remained good friends and she herself is now at BYU, so we correspond pretty regularly and keep in touch.

How well do you know your folklore heroes? Part 2: Daniel Boone

"I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks." ~Daniel Boone

When most people think of Daniel Boone, they think of Davy Crockett. Almost everyone I interviewed openly acknowledged that they got the two characters and stories mixed up (Note the "killed the bar" rumor, the coonskin cap, and the Cumberland gap uncertainty). Even the basic image that springs to mind is the same for both characters, for many people. And as my dad pointed out, I would imagine that a large part of this is due to Fess Parker, who played both roles as the same basic "tough guy in leather" character in films in the 1950s and 1960s. But this would not explain how I or my siblings would confuse the two, seeing as none of us has ever seen a movie of Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone. For proof that this mix-up carries "continuity over time and space," I suggest you check out this link. It also has really great side by side pictures of Fess Parker as Boone and Crockett.

What does he look like?

Dad: Also like Fess Parker. Pretty young. Coonskin cap.
Mom: 30s. Looks the same as Davy Crockett. Not big or muscular. Carries rifle.
Sarah: 30. He has a beard. Wears a coonskin cap. Carries canteen and a rifle. Wears Indian clothes and leather.
Hannah: He has long white hair and he's an old man.

Why is he famous?

Dad: The "quintessential" frontiersman. One of the earliest settlers. Killed a bear. Got to know the Indians and get their respect.
Mom: Something to do with Kentucky. He worked with Indians. He was an outdoorsman.
Sarah: A guide in the West.
Hannah: Did something in Congress. Rescued girls from Indians. Might have blazed Cumberland Gap trail.

Was he real?

All: Yes.

Daniel Boone was a real person. He was born October 2, 1734 (which became November 2 under the Gregorian calendar) and died in Missouri on September 26, 1820, at the age of 85. He was a hunter, explorer, and frontiersman, and is most famously associated with exploring and settling the state of Kentucky. He helped clear a trail through Cumberland Gap in 1769. There are several trees in the South bearing his initials (D. Boon), and noting that he "kilt" or "cilled" a "bar" in this place and such and such a year. In 1776, his daughters were captured by Indians outside of Boonesborough, Kentucky, and he and a group of men rescued them two days later. Most accounts state that he was kidnapped by Indians at one time, and even adopted into a Shawnee tribe. He actually wore a black felt cap instead of a coonskin cap. The song "I sing the pioneer: Daniel Boone" portrays Boone as anti-industrialization, uncomfortable in society, and always seeking to live in open, wild, untamed lands:

Peace! And the settlers flocked anew,

The farm lands spread, the town lands grew;

But Daniel Boone was ill at ease

When he saw the smoke in his forest trees.

"There'll be no game in the country soon.

Elbowroom!" cried Daniel Boone.

Thar be Folklore in them hills...

"The land is so steep you can skin your nose walkin' up it!" ~Appalachian sayin'

I'm taking an English Language class right now, and for one of our assignments, we have to do a dialect report on a variety of English: I picked Appalachian English, and in my studying found some interesting things that I think are relevant to American folklore:

1. Many of the stories we hear from certain regions really lose their flavor if they aren't told in the proper setting and with the original accent. At some point, the context of folklore becomes more memorable than the folklore item itself. And this is for stories that are still being told in English, our native language! Imagine how different an experience it would be to hear and understand a Native American story told in a Native American tongue with Native American signs in an authentic setting, as opposed to reading the mispelled Wikipedia version in English.

2. There are words and structures in the Appalachian dialect which an outsider would consider to be old-fashioned, out-dated, or perhaps simply wrong. However, the very fact that these are regularly used and understood without any problem among the speakers themselves indicates their unity as a high context group in folklore. It's fun to imagine the esoteric/exoteric factor at work here too: Sometimes I wonder what they must think of us with our "high-falutin' city talk." Isn't language another aspect of folklore? Why, then, do we judge people on some of their folkloric traditions and not on others? Why is it okay for us to eat different foods and like different movies, but we have to correct people when they say something ungrammatically correct?

3. Why aren't there any well-known actors or actresses who actually speak the Appalachian dialect? Why don't we have more movies about the Appalachian people?

If you want to learn more about the Appalachian dialect, I highly recommend this website. I also had fun reading "Christy" early this semester.

I've got a mule, her name is Sal

"Fifteen miles on the Er-ie Can-al." Fireside Book of Folk Songs

A long time ago, I made a goal to learn to play every song in the Fireside Book of Folk Songs, one of the most comprehensive and beautifully decorated folk song books I've ever encountered. There's about 100 songs, and I lack maybe 15, which isn't bad for the amount of time and talent I have at the piano. Unfortunately, when I made the goal, I forgot to include the fact that I would need to learn the lyrics to the songs! The result is that I can recognize and hum the tune instantly, but the words and even the titles are hard to recall. Quite a different story from the one in which I imagine these stories were developed, first as spoken lyrics, then as a chant, then finally with a melody and instrument.

The book includes ballads and old favorites, work songs, marching songs and "songs of valor," and old hymns and spirituals. By far my favorite section is the ballads and old favorites, which contains the most songs that we would categorize as "folkloric." For the purposes of this American folklore class, I'll only comment on my favorite American songs here. But there are many other songs which are just as good and un-American. Look them up!

Prizes awarded to American songs from "Ballads and Old Favorites":

Earliest learned song: "The Riddle" - It starts out "I gave my love a cherry." I remember my mom teaching this to me when I was very young. I learned the whole thing quickly and haven't been able to forget it yet. Oh, and I think that part about "a ring when it's rolling, it has no end" is complete hogwash.

Most offensive song: Tie between "The Foggy Foggy Dew" and "Careless Love." They're both easy, fun to play songs, but my mom hates them, largely because of the references to love without marriage, broken hearts, and so on and so forth.
Most haunting song: "I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger." You can pretty much tell already from the title that this is going to be a sad song, and it is. It has to be played with feeling or it just sounds wooden, but when it's done right, it's really beautiful.

Funniest, catchy song:
Winner: "Arkansas Traveler." Probably my very favorite song in the book. I learned all the lyrics once, but I'm afraid I've mixed up some of the phrases and would do a pretty poor job if I tried to recite it. This is such an upbeat, happy song that I often like to hum it or think it to myself while I exercise.
Runner-up: "The Erie Canal." This song is just plumb fun to play. The melody is very bouncy, catchy, and all over the place rhythmically. It's almost like the piano's dancing. I feel like a piano player at an Old Western saloon when I really get into this song.

Does anyone else have any favorites?

How well do you know your folklore heroes? Part 1: Davy Crockett

"You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas." ~Davy Crockett

In our folklore class, we have been studying folk narratives, which includes, among practically every story and joke ever passed around, those many tall tales surrounding well known characters in American folklore. Our teacher mentioned that most people automatically assume in an American folklore class we will be sitting around a campfire, telling tall tales about monumental figures like Davy Crockett or Johnny Appleseed. I laughed with the rest of the class, but secretly I felt it seemed a little sad and even pathetic that we are so far from the days where we could pick up tales from our rocking-chair grandmothers that we have to google or wikipedia "Paul Bunyan" to get a full sense of what everyone considers to be bona fide American folklore. Then I started thinking about what we really do know about our stereotypical folklore legends without being prompted to study, and I was curious if what we actually remember is truth or fiction, and whether it corresponds with the memories of other people around us.

I gave a simple survey on six folklore characters to my dad, mom, and two younger sisters. I asked them 1) to describes what he looks like, 2) why he was famous, and 3) if he was real. Here are the results!

Davy Crockett

What does he look like?

Dad: Like Fess Parker. Late 20s, early 30s. Rough clothing. Rifle.
Mom: Tall. Athletic. Good sense of humor. Twinkle in his eye. Straight hair. Excellent shot. Rifle. 30s.
Sarah: Coonskin cap. Young - 20s. Smart aleck. Carried a gun.
Hannah: Musket. Coonskin cap. Leather clothes, made of deerskin or something. 30s, 40s.

Why is he famous?

Dad: Early frontiersman. Tennessee legislature. Went to Texas. Was killed in Alamo.
Mom: "Sheriff" in Tennessee. Kept law and order. Elected to Congress. Killed a bear when he was 3.
Sarah: Trapper in Tennessee. Guide.
Hannah: Found the wilderness trail through Cumberland Gap, maybe. Fought a giant panther. Something to do with Indians.

Was he real?

All: Yes.

And now for the truth. Davy Crockett was a real person. He was born August 17, 1786 and died at the Alamo in March, 1836, at the age of 49. He opposed President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act. He helped Texas win independence from Mexico. He was reportedly a good shot. He was a member of the TN legislature and also served in three U.S. congresses. Icons associated with Davy Crocketts are the coonskin cap (although it is not known for sure if he wore one), his rifle "Betsy," and his tomahawk, or hatchet. There are no reports of him killing a bear or fighting a giant panther. Also, he preferred "David" to "Davy."

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?" and other family sayings

"Forget it, Kid!" ~Dad (quoting a line from nearly every "Charlie Brown" movie)

Peeking ahead, "A Celebration of American Family Folklore" is easily the most interesting of our textbooks thus far (it's all pictures and stories - what could be more fun?), and the most relevant to understanding the type of folklore which I am best acquainted with. One of my favorite sections of the book is devoted to the collection of unique family sayings; I really enjoyed browsing through the stories and laughing at the explanation of seemingly baffling exclamations and expressions.

To give an example, here is my favorite story from the book:

Cut it, Helen

When you felt that someone was putting you on, you'd say, "Cut it, Helen." There was nobody in our family named Helen, but it came about when one day the phone rang and somebody said to my mother, "Hellen?" And my mother said, "No, I'm sorry, you must have the wrong number." And she kept insisting, and my mother said, "No, you must have the wrong number." And finally she said, "Cut it, Helen!" My mother told us about it at dinner that night. From then on, it became an expression in the family. It's continued in my own family, though they probably don't realize why I say it or where it came from.

I was so tickled by the quirkiness and humor in this story that I wanted to adopt the saying into my own family. Would that be a violation of this family's private folklore?

Anyway, I began thinking about sayings in my own family, and I realized that my dad has a lot of personal catch-phrases and sayings, some of which have been adopted by other family members, and some of which I have no clue where they came from. So with that lengthy introduction, I present the following

"Collection and Attempted Interpretation of Sayings from Dad":

1. "[Insert child's name] McKendrick, we are WAITING!" This comes from the Disney film The Parent Trap, I believe, but I have no reason why my dad latched onto that particular phrase. As long as I can remember, he has used this phrase (in a high-pitched, teasing voice) to call one or the other of us to family prayer, to the car, to come downstairs, etc. It's always a good sign if he uses this expression, because we know he's in a good mood and we aren't in any real trouble.

A quick funny story: When we first got our dog, Teddy, Mama was afraid that Dad would find him annoying and a nuisance. But then, one day, Dad and my sister were waiting to take Teddy on a walk, and he wouldn't come when they called, so Dad yelled, "Teddy McKendrick, we are WAITING!" Later, Mama told my sister that this was a sure sign that Dad had accepted Teddy as a bonafide member of the family.

2. "Give me that pen!" This is a quote from Veruca Salt, one of my dad's very favorite characters in the Gene Wilder version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He uses it whenever he's pretending to be angry with any of us kids, or when we bring him back something of his that was misplaced.

3. "Oh, you blockhead!" My dad says this in a cheerful, jovial voice, whenever one of us makes a mistake (not a serious one) or does something laughably stupid. I believe the saying was first used by characters in the Peanuts cartoons to criticize and berate Charlie Brown, which makes perfect sense since there's a running joke in my family that my dad is a lot like Charlie Brown anyway (bald, has bad luck...). With my dad being equated with Charlie Brown, you would think this would be a natural phrase for us to apply to him. And you would be right - it is now perfectly acceptable for the children of my family to say "Oh you blockhead" to Dad when he is losing a game or telling a funny "horror" story about work. We never say it to each other, however. And Dad never says it to Mama. Even folklore has its fences, folks.

4. "You wanna bet?" Also from The Parent Trap. It was used exclusively by my dad for a long time, but I sometimes catch the odd family member saying it now and then.

5. "Shock!" I have no idea where this came from, but it's always uttered in a low, exaggerated voice, and accompanied with an open mouth and a shaking head. It can be used in almost any circumstance, whether or not you are really surprised by what just happened, but the voice is more likely to be lower when the event is less surprising (i.e. BYU winning their football game against Utah in 2006 would merit a fully audible "SHOCK!!!!!!" In contrast, finding out that my mother had switched dinners for one night would only merit a mild, hushed "Shock!"). I admit to using this expression on occasion, but I prefer to hear my dad say it. My brother has started just saying "Shock" without the accompaniment, and the effect is nowhere near as good.

6. "[Insert child's name, strong emphasis on a particular syllable, usually the second - i.e. Jo-SEPH, Mary AL-MA, Dan-IEL, Ru-UTH (drats! A one syllable name won't save you here), Sa-RAH, Han-NAH]": If you hear this, it is always a bad sign. Always. We kids do the same kind of upspeak when we're mad at each other, but we never take it seriously unless it comes from my dad - he really knows how to make that emphasized syllable sound mean and nasty and threatening. You better be prepared to drop anything and come fast and come running.

7. "My wages, if you please." Also, "What a very pretty hat!" Both from Mary Poppins. Katy Nanna (another one of my dad's top ten delightfully annoying movie characters) says the first, and Mr. Banks says the second (about Katy Nanna). My dad uses the latter to tease us about our looks, sometimes inserting another word for "hat." I don't recall any exact catch-all situations when he would use the former, but it's always very appropriately suited to the expression when he does use it.

8. "What were you saying, my dear?" From the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. Dad usually uses it to point out a mistake we've made in a conversation (and it's not uncommon for him to follow it with "Off with his/her head!"). We use the phrase on him, too, though. The only person who never uses it, and whom we never use it on, is Mama, who is apparently sacrosanct as far as teasing is concerned.

9. I'm not sure if this would qualify as an "expression," but there's a certain rhythm which we've always associated with my dad. He will honk it on his horn, he will knock it on the door, he will chant it or clap it in the house, and anytime we hear it, we know 1) it's Dad, 2) he's in a good mood, and 3) he's calling attention to himself. It's hard to spell out over a keyboard, but I'll do my best to give away this secret code, in the hopes that someone someday will be able to tell me where it comes from.

3 slow beats: knock, knock, knock

5 beats in rhythm: knock, knock-knock knock-knock

(KEY: The emphasis is on the bolded knocks. There is no pause between the hyphenated knocks.)

10. "What is the meaning of this?!?" Not even my dad is sure where this comes from, but he is guessing it's either from a Jane Austen film (my dad is a big Jane Austen fan), or The Parent Trap again. This phrase is never used in a serious situation; never. Update: My sister, who is apparently a lot sharper when it comes to identifying these sorts of things than I am, found the source for this quote - it's from the White Witch in BBC's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Thanks, Mary Alma!

11. "Oh, I don't know, I (he, she, it, whatever) was just over there." The Parent Trap again. It's interesting how many quotes come from this movie when my dad hasn't seen it in years and my mom really hates it. Oh well! Perhaps similarly, I have found myself saying "Inconceivable" a lot, when I really don't consider myself a huge fan of The Princess Bride (although, sigh, I will confess that I did fall in love with Wesley - well, I was only human and under the age of 13 - when I first saw the film).

I enjoyed writing up this collection of a few family sayings. It's fun to see how we interact in a close family network as opposed to the rest of the world. With that, I hope I haven't exposed too much of my dad's private character and personality to the world. I guess I won't know for sure until he reads this blog and then says, either "What is the meaning of this?" or "Ru-UTH."

State songs on my mind

"Never play anything that don't sound right. You might not make any money, but at least you won't get hostile with yourself." ~Hoagy Carmichael

Recently, it was brought to my attention that I am sadly ignorant in the way of my home state's musical folklore, in particular the official state anthem. Though I was born in Alabama, I was raised in Georgia, so I decided it was only fair to research the state songs of both in trying to figure out which tune I should be humming for the rest of the week. And then I got carried away in trying to post and analyze the state songs of every state that I or my family has ever been in. So I finally decided to demonstrate my true unbiased American-ness by simply linking y'all (as we say in the true South) to a complete list of all 50 state songs. The site includes not only the title of each state song, but the lyrics as well, and in most cases, the link to purchase the sheet music and a clip of the song. Amazing, no? While browsing through this remarkable compilation of true American patriotism and musical folklore, I made the following observations:

1. I am a pretty pitiful character in the way of state patriotism. I didn't know the lyrics or even the titles of the state songs for Alabama ("Alabama"), Georgia ("Georgia on my mind"), or Utah ("Utah, We Love Thee"). The only songs I could vaguely hum or recall any words to were from three states in which I've never lived for a month: Virginia ("Carry Me Back to Old Virginia"; that's where the dah dah and the dah dah dah dah dah), Kansas ("Home on the Range"; of course, you'd have to be a buffalo to not recognize that one), and Tennessee ("Rocky Top"; it's good and it's ol'). Of course, before I shed too many tears about this pathetic (or apathetic, rather) demonstration of state pride, I really should work on memorizing all the verses of the national anthem (I'm pretty sure it's called either "The Star Spangled Banner" or "O Say Can You See[?]").

2. Overall, we as a nation are not very inventive in coming with titles for our state songs. I counted 10 states where the song is simply titled the name of the state (including my beloved "Alabama"). I can see that this is useful for only two purposes: to assist players of Jeopardy with easy trivia ("What's the state song of Wyoming!?" "Wyoming."), and to make it easy for kids to memorize them for tests (supposing in the first place that there is a teacher cruel enough to actually require this absurdly abstract knowledge of them). There are also quite a few states with less-than-creative song titles. Witness the following examples:

a. "Michigan, My Michigan." (which totally is a copycat of "Oregon, My Oregon," or "Maryland, My Maryland," or "Florida, My Florida," or vice versa). (Texas' title tries to be a little different, but the idea is pretty much the same: "Texas, Our Texas.")

b. "State Song of Maine." Yup, that about sums it up. Practical, those Mainers.

c. "Here We Have Idaho." Can you sense that there isn't any more to say?

d. "Hail Massachusetts." (Not bad, except for the fact that Minnesota, Vermont, South Dakota all had the same idea. Except Minnesota decided to be unique by putting an exclamation point: "Hail! Minnesota.")

3. What's up with Tennessee having SIX songs? Is the state divided into six parts or something? Maybe they had six first place winners when they held the state song contest? It seems like pretty poor sportsmanship to me, anyway. Can you imagine what would happen if every state was like that? 300 state songs, that's what.

4. There's a little bit of state snobbery going on in some of these songs:

a. The first line of California's anthem is "I love you, California, you're the greatest state of all." I guess they've only got 49 states that disagree with them.

b. Utah's anthem thinks a lot of itself: "Utah! Getting bigger and better. Utah! Always leading the way." Notice that it doesn't say what Utah is leading the way in. The production of Great Salt Lakes, most likely.

c. Idaho's is just a little pretentious: "You've heard of the wonders our land does possess." Really? I mean, really? To be honest, all I've heard about Idaho is potatoes.

d. Illinois's takes a chance on offending every other state that found on the Union side in the Civil War: "When the Southern host withdrew, Pitting Gray against the Blue, There were none more brave than you, Illinois."

e. This line from Nebraska's is kind of funny: "There is no place that has so much to give." Perhaps the reason it has so much to give is because no one wants it enough to take it....?

f. My favorite one of all is the first stanza of Rhode Island's anthem ("Rhode Island - It's for Me"). It pretty much speaks for itself:

I’ve been to every state we have,
and I think I’m inclined to say
that Rhody stole my heart:
You can keep the forty-nine.

5. Fun fact: Mississippi's state song says "Mississippi" 15 times and spells it out 5 times. It's practically a tongue twister.

6. So why does Connecticut get Yankee Doodle? You would think Massachusetts might be a little offended, at least...

7. I really like Indiana's title: "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away." It's creative and interesting and fun to say. Imagine if you were from Indiana and were asked what your state song was (by the mean teacher, no doubt), and you got to say the words "Banks" and "Wabash" in the same sentence. Assuming you were in a classroom in a state other than Indiana, you could also mutter "Far Away" under your breath and everyone would snicker. Now isn't that just awesome?

After reading the state songs of Alabama and Georgia, I've decided that I like Georgia's better. Part of the reason is because I feel silly saying things like "Coosa-Tallapoosa" and "We will aye be true to thee!" But the main reason is that the situation in Georgia's state song is somewhat similar to my own - a person who left Georgia unwillingly (assumedly) is remembering it and promising to return someday. I've missed the green grass, trees, and country quietness of Georgia a lot since my family moved to Utah (in 2002), and I've always secretly hoped that I'll be able to move back and settle there again as an adult.

So in honor of Georgia, I'm making a pledge to memorize the lyrics of the Georgia state song before the end of the semester. But just to assure you I'm still a common flicker (and not a brown thrasher), I'm also going to memorize the title of Alabama's state song.

Georgia on My Mind
Written by: Stuart Gorrell
Composed by: Hoagy Carmichael
Georgia, Georgia, the whole day through
Just an old sweet song keeps Georgia on my mind.
Georgia, Georgia, a song of you
Comes as sweet and clear as moonlight through the pines.

Other arms reach out to me
Other eyes smile tenderly
Still in peaceful dreams I see
The road leads back to you.

Georgia, Georgia, no peace I find
Just an old sweet song keeps Georgia on my mind.

Melodies bring memories
That linger in my heart
Make me think of Georgia
Why did we ever part?

Some sweet day when blossoms fall
And all the world's a song
I'll go back to Georgia
'Cause that's where I belong.