TRADITIONS
This week’s column is a bit of a personal reminiscence. So I ask upfront for your indulgence! It seems I have been writing about a lot of big issues in the world, in politics, and in society. So this week, it will be a topic interesting and poignant and personal.
When we are growing up, in a small town or a large city, it is natural to assume that what we do, the traditions we honor, are worldwide. As we get older, we often see that some of those “traditions” were actually local.
I grew up in a small town in western Pennsylvania called Vandergrift.
The famous Ida Tarbell wrote about my town as a “workingman’s paradise.” Historians saw it as the first “company town” that actually wanted workers to have nice homes, with lots of parks, and churches on many corners. Our little town had lots of trees, lots of parks and lots of playgrounds.
It was a great place in which to grow up.
The people had solid Midwestern values. They neither had maximum needs or maximum wants. They wanted to be healthy, safe and happy.
I am writing this column on Mothers’ Day.
I went to church with my wife today and it was very different from my hometown experience. In our town, on Mothers’ Day, if your mother was deceased you wore a white carnation in the lapel of your suit or sport coat or on your dress at church. If your mother was still living, you wore a red one. So on Mothers’ Day the church was filled with people dressed in their finest and sporting a white or red flower in honor of or remembrance of their mother.
I assumed this occurred everywhere.
Well it doesn’t.
I have no idea how that tradition got started in our little town but it was a wonderful one. When I tell this story to my friends now they all think it was a great idea. Yet in living all over the country as an adult I have never seen that simple but beautiful tradition carried out anywhere else.
Easter Sunday also had sartorial tradition in my home town. In our little town most people did not have much money and new clothes were not often purchased. But Easter was the day when most of us got something new to wear. A new sport coat, suit or dress. Of course, I realize now that the way kids grow so fast new clothes were probably required annually but in my town they made it special, it was on Easter Sunday that everyone sported their new duds.
By now you have probably realized that these traditions centered on church life. Remember Mom on Mothers’ Day at church. Get dressed in your newest duds for church on Easter.
There was a reason for this and it was a deep reverence for religion, for religious teachings, and a determination to look and act your best when you were in church.
I was taught that you dressed up when you went to God’s house. It was an important day and an important occasion. And dressing in your finest was just a small way of showing your respect. In fact, there were no more important days than Sunday and no more important occasion than worship.
We also were taught traditions surrounding death. It was not hidden from us. We went to wakes and we went to funerals and we went to the cemeteries for the burials. This happened so often it provided us with an understanding of the cycles of life, imbued in us at a very young age.
One of the sayings I have always remembered, practiced and cherished was: you are never too busy to pay your respects to the dead. In our town everybody paid their respects to the dead.
Our world has changed.
I suspect it is not going to come as a surprise to any of my readers that I still honor the traditions of my youth in this regard and I will continue to do so while I still have breath.
I understand and accept that people now have different traditions, and I have no need to try to change that nor would I be successful if I tried.
I am just so comfortable with my own traditions and they fit me like a tailor-made suit. And it is the way I choose to honor those who gave me life and helped me build my life, building blocks that stood the test of time.
