Starting with a splash
TODAY is a day partly of recovery from the consumption of Easter eggs; mainly of going to the beach or to watch rugby. There is not much danger of having a bucket of water chucked over you on the way.
Not so in Mittel Europa and in parts of America to which large numbers of Czechs, Slovakians and Poles have emigrated. Here Easter Monday is known as Dyngus Day (Wet Monday), on which girls are traditionally wakened by having buckets of water thrown over them in bed by boys.
Originally there was an element of courtship in the ritual. Only young, unmarried girls were acceptable targets and often the boy who entered her bedroom with a bucket of water did it with the connivance of the mother.
What girl could resist such blandishments? I suppose if you loved her to distraction ,you could throw a bucket of beer over her.
| Of late the tradition has altered slightly, girls themselves taking the initiative and fiercely dousing the boys with buckets of water. That squares with what has been happening worldwide in the relationship of the sexes. And in Poland it has gone over to random water attacks on whoever might be passing by, launched by both girls and boys, often from tall buildings. In the US Dyngus Day is celebrated in places with a large Polish settlement, such as | ||
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Chicago; Buffalo (New York); Wyandotte and Hamtramck (Michigan); and La Porte and South Bend (Indiana). Kersplash! It's also celebrated at Jonathan Edwards College, Yale University, when the freshman class storms the college with water bombs and nobody goes home dry.
It all sounds great fun, nothing like our rather somnolent Easter Monday.
Let's look again
EASTER Monday is, of course, known in South Africa these days as "Family Day". This is not exactly snappy and it's difficult to see why the self-explanatory name used in the rest of the English-speaking world ever was changed.
The current politicos were not the culprits, it was the bad old Nats. Perhaps we need another commission of inquiry to look at it.
Dyngus Day is appealing, but South African girls possibly wouldn't enter into the spirit of being wakened with buckets of water. Such a commission might, after lengthy deliberation, discover that as Sunday is followed by Monday, Easter Sunday should be followed by Easter Monday.
Voila! And it's what everyone calls it anyway!
Family Day
MEANWHILE, Sarita Mathur, of Morningside, offers these lines of verse.
Family Day the Monday after Easter,
Families getting together
In happiness and pride.
Unity in diversity,
No petty quarrels,
No taking sides.
Mothers and sons and
In-laws too,
Happy days for everyone
For Family Day has come.
It is the Monday after Easter
And no day can be better
Than this one to rejoice
With one voice
For good values and
Principles have come
For each and everyone.
Respect of tradition and renewed
Respect for all,
Family Day – the day
After Easter has come
And South Africa can stand tall.
Unity in caste, colour and creed,
Family Day – it is indeed
It is the Monday after Easter.
Transformation and rejuvenation,
Family values and
Family Fun;
Good principles and Easter Bunnies ,
They are there for one and all,
Ubuntu and togetherness,
Everybody can stand tall.
Tradition and wholesome fun,
Family spirit in everyone,
Good morals and behaviour too,
Family Day for everyone.
Lonely robots
NEIL Dunton, of Kloof, is puzzled by a lonely robot placed high above the N3, just before the Richmond Road turn-off at Pinetown. He says it faces the opposite direction to the traffic flow. (I presume he means the flow of oncoming vehicles).
"I can't imagine what it's doing there. Perhaps some reader could enlighten me."
I can't enlighten, but I can tell of a similar lonely robot on the N3 outside Maritzburg. It's on the "up" carriageway, attached to an overhead bridge near Ashburton. It too faces away from the oncoming traffic and it makes signals to cars from behind as they speed away.
What its purpose could be, I've often wondered. Perhaps somebody can enlighten us.
Tailpiece
THE BEST way to lose weight is to eat standing naked in front of a mirror. The restaurant will throw you out before you've had too much.
Last word
I base my fashion taste on what doesn't itch.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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