Here it is May 1, 2025. May Day has meant different things to different people in our nation’s history. What does it mean to you this year?

Is it the opening of water recreation season?

I’m usually out kayaking by now, but boating weather is taking its own sweet time getting here this year.

Is May Day an ancient pagan fertility ritual expressed symbolically with maypoles, wreaths, and baskets?

There was much rebirth to celebrate here after the end of WWI and The Spanish Flu pandemic. May Day was primarily an opportunity for children to perform and play dress up to entertain the adults in Kennebunk during the 1920s. Many thanks to Carolyn Sherman for sharing her Waterhouse/Harmon Family May Day photos with me.

Is May Day a time to protest for humane workers’ conditions?

The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions proclaimed, “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886.” Workers walked out of their jobs across this country on that day. The memory of a deadly clash between protesters and police in Haymarket Square Chicago set the date May 1st as International Workers’ Day starting in 1889. President Grover Cleveland, wanting to distance himself from a growing socialism ideology in the United States, signed legislation in 1894 to move a wholly American “Labor Day” to the first Monday in September.

Is May 1st Law Day, a day to recognize the importance of the rule of law for all in our country?

So it was declared by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958. His proclamation began, “Whereas it is fitting that the people of this Nation should remember with pride and vigilantly guard the great heritage of liberty, justice, and equality under law which our forefathers bequeathed to us.”

Whatever May Day means to you, make the most of it. To each their own!