A Symbol of Fertility

The midsummer pole is not actually the straight, plain log I had in mind.

'It's a symbol of fertility,' explained Elsa, the retired schoolteacher I met backpacking in Java months ago.

She and her husband graciously invited me to join their extended family for the Midsummer Solstice Festival, Sweden's cool pagan schnapps party.

'We want you to experience a real Swedish cultural event!' Per beamed.

So IKEA's twice-yearly sale doesn't count?

I didn't know real Swedish culture featured a 15-foot wooden phallus on the grass.

My kind of lawn ornament!

The Midsummer lunch was a smörgåsbord of meatballs, quiche, cheese, smoked herring, raw herring, herring cake, herring pie, green salad (with herring), and lots and lots of schnapps.

'Toot tooot!'

Per played his bugle to signal the start of the drinking games and raised his glass for a short group sing-a-long.

We took a sip or swig of Absolut. Five minutes later we did it again - we sang about nature. And again - cue the socialist ditty. The bugle intervals pared down to 30 seconds until we were summoned, tipsy, to decorate the pole.

By decorate, I mean Elsa's son cut down a real alder tree, stripped its branches and handed them to me with some twine. Because tradition dictates any phallic symbol with Midsummer's ovaries flopping in the breeze should look realistic...

Well, the significance of the two circular wreaths dangling from the pole's arms is really up for debate:

Opinion one - woodsy ovums, giving the pole that jolly hermaphroditic crucifix flavor.

Opinion two - dangling scrotum sacks blowing seed to the wind, allowing the perpendicular pole to theoretically get it on with mother earth.

Bow-chicka-wow-wow!

Suddenly, this is reading like The Smutty Traveler.

When we finished camouflaging the pole, we stood in awe. Forty four relatives of Per and Elsa, slick with schnapps or chocolate cake (or both) crowned with wildflowers, frolicking hand-in-hand around this Scandinavian sex symbol, topped with the Swedish flag.

That's when the singing started. Some tunes were like a public service announcement:

The bear is sleeping, the bear is sleeping
In it's calm den
He's not dangerous as long as you're cautious
But you can never trust him!

This lesson must have been learned the hard way. I liked the one with choreography:

Little froggies, little froggies
It's very jolly to watch them!
(hold your neighbors hand and skip to the right)
No ears, no ears they have
(ear cupping motion)
No tails, no tails they have
(tail pointing)
Oh, quack quack quack!
(hop in a circle)

Little piggies, little piggies
It's very jolly to watch them!
(now, skip to the left)
Both ears and tails they have
(more ear and tail pointing)
Oh, poink poink poink!
(more hopping)

Ancient Swedes apparently found frogs very disturbing creatures, pointing out their audial inferiority to swine and confusing their natural call with ducks.

It happens. Well, it happens in real Sweden.

The Great Lawn Ranger

One Father's Day dad wanted all of us to help fix up our yard while he supervised with a toasted cheese sandwich, a root beer float, and a pack of Lucky Strikes.

My pimply brother, Walkman jamming Too $hort (that's still how he rolls), was busy making long, crooked lines over two acres of browning grass freckled with molehills. My sister was on back-breaking weed-pulling duty in The Diplomat's 'naturalist' style rhody garden.

Being nearly a decade younger than my siblings, dad told me my contribution would involve a really fun game.

'It's called 'Pick Up Sticks'

'Pick up what?'

'You see all these sticks laying around the yard here honey? Well, your brother can't mow this part of the lawn because there's too many sticks in the way...'

A wailing screech of rocks grinding against the metal blade of the John Deere interrupted his sale of the 'game', followed by a puff of dirt blowing over our heads as my brother ran over yet another rocky molehill, chuckling with destructive teenage glee.

'Godammit son, don't break the goddamned thing! Gawd!' He sighed, rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to me.

'But I want to ride the lawn mower,' I whined, accustomed to getting my way as the youngest, cutest, daddy's girl.

'You're 9 - you have to wait until you're a double-digit to operate industrial machinery. Just do it. It's going to be fun!'

Coming from dad, master of sarcasm, purveyor of pessimism, I suspected this false bit of cheer right away.

'Is this a real game?'

For the record, no, Pick Up Sticks is not a real game. It's more like a lesson on the diabolical nature of, um... nature.

With every stick I was enslaved to drag to dad's pyro-tastic bonfire, the alder above watched its former self pile as a collection of shattered, dead limbs - a symbol of the lack of strength (and lets face it - willpower) the tree had to retain its own branches against an enemy as pithy as wind.

'You're pathetic, tree.'

An early retiree, dad spent the majority of my growing up years covered in wood chips and grass stains with the dog lapping close behind. The Buddha is to enlightenment what dad was to the weed whacker.

The last Father's Day card I bought him read, 'Happy Fathers Day to the Great Lawn Ranger'. Heh.

I meant to give it to him 5 years ago, but decades of Lucky Strikes wouldn't allow him the extra week for another Father's Day. One extra week and we could have cussed out the tree playing the game.

I miss you so much, dad.