Family traditions and superstitions

13

Comments

  • NicoleMRNicoleMR Shipmate
    edited March 25
    Of course there is the version of the "Happy Birthday" song which goes:

    Happy birthday to you
    You belong in a zoo.
    You look like a monkey
    And you smell like one too.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    Or this version of "Pretty Baby":

    Every party has a pooper,
    That's why we invited you.
    Party pooper,
    Super duper!
  • Never put your hat on the bed. Not sure why.
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    Never put your hat on the bed. Not sure why.

    I've heard that it's to prevent lice, which might be in the hat, from hiding themselves in the bed.

  • Never wear a red hat - as the old saying goes
    Red Hat = No Drawers.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Never wear a red hat - as the old saying goes
    Red Hat = No Drawers.

    Or in Embra - Fur coat and nae knickers.
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    I knew it as red shoes, no knickers.
  • Ethne AlbaEthne Alba Shipmate
    Oh “ red hat = no knickers” was once explained to me with great gleeful joy by an elder’s wife in a Strict and Particular Baptist Church.

    This innocent 16year old living away from home saw the Strict and Particulars in a whole other light after that encounter.
  • In my youth ' red hat, no knickers' was used light-heartedly, often by the wearer of said hat. But 'she's all fur coat and no knickers' was definitely meant as a slander.
  • Moo wrote: »
    Never put your hat on the bed. Not sure why.

    I've heard that it's to prevent lice, which might be in the hat, from hiding themselves in the bed.

    Since my (wooly) hat, in bed, is generally on my head, I guess there's a kind of status quo regarding anything wriggly...
  • Never wear a red hat - as the old saying goes
    Red Hat = No Drawers.

    I'd never heard that. The only special thing I knew about red hats was The Red Hat Society. I had a lot of parishioners in one congregation who were members. Suddenly, I'm seeing the whole thing differently :flushed: Who knows what those Red Hatters were getting up to?
  • Update on railroad tracks and pregnancy. I did a 3 hour drive today, crossing several RR tracks in the process. I found myself almost instinctively lifting my feet off the floor. Apparently my body remembers that if your feet touch the floor of the car while it is crossing the tracks, you will get pregnant. My brain had forgotten and thought I had to hold my breath. It's quite amazing and funny how some of these childhood-trained practices become programmed into us.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    The only special thing I knew about red hats was The Red Hat Society.
    There's a chapter here in Phoenix (Sun City, actually). The Red Hat Ladies can be seen shopping, attending show, visiting museums, etc. (or at least can in better times).
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    "Mockers" also appears to be of Yiddish derivation, but via Britain. I wonder if the derivation is affected by different Jewish traditions? Melbourne seems to tend more orthodox than Sydney.

    Melbourne developed a Jewish community earlier than Sydney (there were Jewish people her, but not enough to really form a community). It was predominantly orthodox. That then attracted more orthodox migrants and so it went on. There was no substantial Jewish community in Sydney until WW II and after, and those fleeing went wherever they could. More of those coming from Sth Africa arrived in Sydney rather than Melbourne. They were liberal both in their religion, and in the different sense in their politics.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    Regarding Happy Birthday: I grew up with the traditional birthday tune, sometimes (by children) with the "you belong in zoo" verse added for extra naughtiness. But when I got to college (in the US, early 1980s) it was extremely popular to sing an alternate birthday song with a very dirgy tune (similar to "Song of the Volga Boatmen") with the lyrics:

    Happy birthday! Happy birthday!
    Sickness sorrow and despair,
    People dying everywhere,
    Happy birthday! Happy birthday!


    It was far more popular on my college campus than the traditional HB song, to the point that by the time I left it seemed like the normal way to celebrate someone's birthday -- and then after I left I never heard it again, anywhere. However, a YouTube search suggests it wasn't just on my college campus from 1983-1986 -- other people in other places and times have sung it too.

    That led me to do a Google search, to find this page which, like many, refers to it as "the Birthday Dirge," lists many more verses than the one I remember, and says that its origin is shrouded in mystery -- although they do peg it as beginning around 83 or 84 which accords with my memories.

    Anyone else know this?

  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    I do! I still sing it from time to time.

    And I first had it sung to me on my 19th birthday in 1980, so it began earlier than the page you cited pegged it.

  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    [tangent alert]

    The traditional Happy Birthday song was still under copyright in the 1950s. It was held by the nephew of the composer, who taught linguistics at the University of Texas. Every time Happy Birthday was played on the radio, he received a royalty. It brought him more than $15,000 a year, which was more than his university salary.

    [/tangent alert]
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    If you spill salt, you must throw a pinch of it over your shoulder.
  • SighthoundSighthound Shipmate
    I am reminded of a song sung at school on birthdays:

    Happy birthday to you,
    Squashed tomatoes and stew,
    Egg and bacon for breakfast,
    Happy birthday to you.

    Why we sang this I have no idea, as it is neither funny nor cruel.

    I also remember a custom that seems to have gone entirely. (This was in Manchester, England.) If someone in the vicinity died (even if you did not know them) all front curtains were drawn. I can't recall whether this was for the day or until the funeral, but as a young kid it used to annoy me as it made the house gloomy and it was difficult to read or do anything much.
  • PriscillaPriscilla Shipmate
    Our thi
    Sighthound wrote: »
    I am reminded of a song sung at school on birthdays:

    Happy birthday to you,
    Squashed tomatoes and stew,
    Egg and bacon for breakfast,
    Happy birthday to you.

    Why we sang this I have no idea, as it is neither funny nor cruel.
    .

    Our third line was “Bread and butter in the gutter”
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    Priscilla wrote: »
    Our thi
    Sighthound wrote: »
    I am reminded of a song sung at school on birthdays:

    Happy birthday to you,
    Squashed tomatoes and stew,
    Egg and bacon for breakfast,
    Happy birthday to you.

    Why we sang this I have no idea, as it is neither funny nor cruel.
    .

    Our third line was “Bread and butter in the gutter”

    Same here. Maybe it was regional, mine was London. Usually bu'er in the gu'er.

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Happy birthday to you
    You were born in zoo
    With elephants and monkeys
    You look like one too.
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    With elephants and monkeys
    You look like one too.
    "You look like a monkey
    And smell like one too."

    Kentish version.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    A good variation
  • AravisAravis Shipmate
    I’m pretty sure that version features in a Judy Blume book, so it must have been well known in the US too.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    And mentioned upthread.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    To the tune of "On Top of Old Smoky"

    On top of spaghetti all covered with cheese
    I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.

    It rolled off the table and onto the floor
    It rolled through the door and under a bush
    And now my poor meatball is nothing but moosh!

    I don't even remember the lyrics to "Old Smoky" anymore. :smile:
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    I've heard of two deaths today and realise that I'm now a bit on edge as my mum always said "they come in threes." I hadn't quite realised until now how superstitious my mum was and how it still affects me.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited March 29
    Lyda wrote: »
    To the tune of "On Top of Old Smoky"

    On top of spaghetti all covered with cheese
    I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.

    It rolled off the table and onto the floor
    It rolled through the door and under a bush
    And now my poor meatball is nothing but moosh!

    I don't even remember the lyrics to "Old Smoky" anymore. :smile:
    That’s a short version. I learned:

    On top of spaghetti all covered with cheese,
    I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.

    It rolled off the table, it rolled on the floor,
    And then my poor meatball rolled right out the door.

    It rolled in the garden and under a bush,
    And then my poor meatball was nothing but mush.

    The mush was as tasty as tasty could be,
    And early next summer it grew to a tree.

    The tree was all covered with beautiful moss.
    It grew great big meatballs and tomato sauce.

    So if you have spaghetti all covered with cheese,
    Hold on to your meatball and be sure not to sneeze.

  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    I like it! :smiley:
  • I learned:
    Ten thousand years later
    A meatball tree grew
    And now my poor meatball
    Is back in the stew

    as the last verse.
  • The best time to sing On Top of Spaghetti is when travelling on a gravel or very bumpy road. The long notes get a fantastic pulse. There aren't enough roads like that anymore.
  • We always supplemented those roads by bouncing on our shared bus seats!
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    Like @Nenya, I have more of this stuff hanging round my unconscious than I realise. I was thinking about how to organise the Wash Ing and Iron Ing this week (with a small child in the house this is the Labours of Hercules™) and something in my brain went "mustn't do it on Good Friday". I probably will do it on Friday, that being my habitual ironing day, but I shall feel guilty, in the knowledge that my grandmother would have been appalled.
  • Ethne AlbaEthne Alba Shipmate
    I m still conflicted about the potatoes going in in Good Friday
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    Around here there used to be a superstition (I heard it as a child as "something the Catholics believe") that if you hammered in a nail on Good Friday, blood would pour out of the wood. Mind you my mother said this while my father was fixing something at the cabin that definitely involved hammering nails into wood, so my staunchly Protestant parents obviously didn't give any credence to it.
  • Want to sell your house? Bury a small statue of St. Joseph in the yard head first.
    My Roman Catholic neighbor suggested that we do this to speed up the sale. It sold in under 12 hours without St. Joseph's help.
  • Want to sell your house? Bury a small statue of St. Joseph in the yard head first.
    My Roman Catholic neighbor suggested that we do this to speed up the sale. It sold in under 12 hours without St. Joseph's help.

    But it would have sold more quickly with his help.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    The St. Joseph statue thing is a very widely held belief over here.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Lyda wrote: »
    To the tune of "On Top of Old Smoky"

    On top of spaghetti all covered with cheese
    I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.

    It rolled off the table and onto the floor
    It rolled through the door and under a bush
    And now my poor meatball is nothing but moosh!

    I don't even remember the lyrics to "Old Smoky" anymore. :smile:

    Nostalgia, nostalgia, nostalgia. There was another version of this with a different couplet at the end, and yet another sung around school with very different words indeed - can't remember either of those now.
  • Do they ever dig up the St. Joseph statues? I imagine things would get a bit crowded underground after a hundred years or so. At least in the most likely spots.
  • NicoleMRNicoleMR Shipmate
    They even sell kits with St Joseph statues specifically for that purpose.
  • Wow! I cannot believe I never knew about this and that it hasn't been on "Gadgets for God". Allegedly "the most common kit that Real Estate Agents are using to help their customers to make a fast and good deal for their property".

    But why has St. Joseph been given this gig? Is it because he obviously had to sell his house quickly when the Holy Family fled to Egypt and then again when they came back?
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    Do they ever dig up the St. Joseph statues? I imagine things would get a bit crowded underground after a hundred years or so. At least in the most likely spots.

    The way I heard it , you are supposed to dig up the statue after the sale is made and give it a p[ace of honor in your new home.



  • Lyda wrote: »
    To the tune of "On Top of Old Smoky"
    On top of spaghetti all covered with cheese
    I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.

    Mrs C learned that, and several more verses to go with it, in the Girl Guides.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    Do they ever dig up the St. Joseph statues? I imagine things would get a bit crowded underground after a hundred years or so. At least in the most likely spots.

    Happy to report on this with firsthand knowledge! We recently bought the house next door to ours as a rental property, which we are renting to our son and two of his friends. We knew the previous owner well -- he had also used it as a rental property for several years and decided after the latest tenants moved out last summer that he wanted it off his hands. He offered it to us before putting it on the market but we weren't interested at the time -- however, after several months of it not selling (and the price dropping) we decided perhaps we were interested, contacted him, and ended up buying it.

    The day after the sale closed and we had helped the boys move in, the former owner (who also owns a business in the neighbourhood) trotted over to my car as I was leaving the driveway and, after we'd chatted for a couple of minutes, said, half-abashedly, "Now, I got to do something, and you'll think it's crazy, but my missus is superstitious, and when the house was on the market for awhile and wouldn't sell..."

    I knew right away where this was going and said, "You've got St. Joseph buried in the yard, haven't you?"

    So he dug up St. Joseph, telling me that our call to let him know we were interested in purchasing had come only a week or two after St. Joseph was put on the job. They had previously had success selling their own residence with St. Joseph's help, and were thinking of burying him on the business property next, as they're about ready to sell up and retire.

    So the good saint is doing his job for at least one family in our city, and yes, he did get exhumed after the sale!
  • Any clue as to why St. Joseph is put in the ground head first?
  • Poor Joseph!
  • MiffyMiffy Shipmate
    Don’t warm your hands on the radiator when you’ve just come in from outdoors; you’ll get chilblains.

    I remember being told this at school, generally when we were trying to defrost after several hours spent out on a freezing cold games field.
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