I don't know if any areas of the USA celebrate May 1st by dancing around a Maypole, but it is done so in Britain, mainly by young school children.
The pole has blue and pink ribbons hanging down. Boys take hold of a blue ribbon with their left hand, girls a pink with their right hand, then walk away from the pole until the ribbon is taut. This means that the boys and girls face each other. Now they dance, with a skipping step, in opposite directions, alternately weaving inside then outside the people they encounter, as the ribbons slowly shorten and dancers are pulled in closer and closer to the pole, until eventually it is no longer possible to go further.
Meanwhile all the mummies and daddies, not to mention teachers and benign parish priests are looking on, smiling sweetly.
Little do they know the ancient origins of this ceremony!
Participants in the Maypole dance had all reached puberty and had no partner, meaning they were 13 to 16 years old. When the ribbon ran out, there would be a boy and girl facing each other. Each couple then ran off into the woods for a spot of nookie to celebrate their new status.
The resulting children would be born during January, a time when women were least busy.
Maypole dance, anybody? 
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Here we observe, but not in that traditional way. Major street demonstrations today in the Seattle Soviet...
seattlepanda
Level 7
May 1, 2019
1
That's the socialist inspired May day ( labour day) celebration. It was a big occasion in communist Russia, and is still marked by official parades.
@Petter ...China too...
@seattlepanda True, not forgetting North Korea.
@Petter but curiously...I find these are some of the least socialist countries in the world ;D
@seattlepanda Any country that needs to add the words "democratic" or "peoples" to its name, is neither democratic nor socialist.
@Petter ...good checkpoint...
We have a maypole here in Northern Ireland, in a place called Holywood, in Co. Down. They would have had the local schoolchildren dance around it this morning. I live about 60 miles away to the west, so did not actually witness it today. I believe it is the only one left in Ireland, and at one time Morris Dancers would have danced around it. It goes back to around the 15th century and Morris is a derivation of Moorish. The dancers blacked their faces to mimic the Moors, but it’s unclear why the English decided to do so, and why it’s associated with Mayday.
Marionville
Level 10
May 1, 2019
1
So no fun filled May in Ireland, then?
@Petter It depends what you count as fun!
@Marionville Running off into the woods for Springtime nookie?
@Petter I can definitely say that I didn’t get involved in any of these shenanigans this morning! There was a bunch of people who got up at some ludicrously early hour to climb to the top of Slieve Donard, the highest peak in the Mourne Mountains to greet the dawn, and wash in the dew! Another crackpot Mayday tradition.....and no I didn’t do that either!
@Marionville Neither did I, for reasons of distance and age.
It was a big whoop-de-doo at my elementary school. Parents were invited; we all wore our good clothes; we wove our ribbons with GREAT seriousness. However, nobody told us about the ''nookie in the woods'' ending. Just saying.
LucyLoohoo
Level 9
May 1, 2019
2
It is just a silly dance where ribbons and flowers get all tangled up here...I never heard of this aspect of it and glad of it...
thinktwice
Level 8
May 1, 2019
1
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