The play, "Fiddler on the Roof," opens with the father explaining the importance of traditions in the family. He even sings a song about them. How do I know this? Because Uncle John played that father, Tevye, in his high school production of Fiddler on the Roof. Therefore, we listened to the album approximately ten and a half gazillion times.
Tevye explains that traditions help you keep your balance, like a fiddler on the roof. Now, no one in our family is well balanced, but our family had traditions too. Like private jokes, they meant something to us, but maybe not to people outside of the family.
Some traditions have been a part of being a Tolley since before I can remember. Like the way Grandma Tolley used to tuck us in at night. After we were in bed, Grandma would say to us:
"Night night, sleep tight.
Don't let the bedbugs bite
your nose or your toes,
that's the way the story goes,
Pop goes the weasel!"
Uncle Jim remembers the tradition differently. He says Grandma would just tell him:
"There's a weasel under the bed.
Now go to sleep."
The Madelyn Padelyn song*, your special goodnight song, carries on the tradition that Grandma started. Your song, while longer and with more embellishments, contains the same verse that Grandma sang to us.
Some traditions came to us from other families, like the special way Aunt Rita would sing Happy Birthday. This was something started by her in laws family, and we kind of inherited it. Before singing the actual birthday song, there was a pre-verse that went:
Shine your shoes, comb your hair,
Come along with me,
It's ______'s birthday,
that's the place to be!
A nice, clean addition to any song.
Of course the Tolleys had their own birthday song:
Here's to you (Birthday boy) here's to you!
Here's to you Birthday boy here's to you!
Oh you think your upperclass,
But you're just a horses ass,
Here's to you Birthday boy here's to you!
Not quite as clean, but it got the point across. You knew you were an adult when they stopped singing about shiny shoes on your birthday and just called you an ass.
And Aunt Cathy's neighbors from Fairfield Ave. gave us "X Marks the Spot," * a little routine where you trace things on a kids back while you sing a little song. A tried and true ice breaker with kids, it has only been a part of the family since 1977 or 78. Once you do it to a little kid, they want you to do it again. And again. And again. I now X marks the spot to little Mexican kids in the neighborhood. They don't understand the words, but they want you to keep doing it till your own arm wants to fall off.
Both Aunt Rita and Aunt Cathy were surprised that I remembered these little rituals. Obviously, they do not appreciate the Importance of tradition to a Tolley. Heck, we still tell and laugh at the same jokes and stories we heard 25 years ago. Our motto is: if it got a laugh once, it's good for another million laughs.
Some traditions have only been around since you grandkids have been here, like the fairies. Did you know that fairies dance in your garden to the sounds of your wind chimes? You can always tell when they have been there, because they leave fairy dust, which looks an awful lot like glitter you might get at the craft store. To say thank you for letting them dance in your garden, the fairies would leave little gifts, which look an awful lot like trinkets you might get at the dollar store. None of you kids ever questioned this because, like I said, there were gifts involved.
I guess traditions mean alot to me, too. Grandma might have been the first to bring the fairies to our family, but you and I were the first ones to plant sour ball candies to grow suckers. We also found out that if you planted pennies, you could grow pencils that looked like $100 bills.
And the cloud factory! You and I first saw a cloud factory while driving down I-55 near Springfield, IL. It looks like any other factory along the highway, but its not. You could tell it was a cloud factory because there were big towers with white smoke billowing from them. What else could they be? Over the years, we saw that factory make many big puffy clouds as we drove back and forth between our house in St. Louis and Grandmas in Chicago. We always smiled because even when the weather was bad, the factory was making happy clouds.
Sometimes these traditions seem silly. They might have meant something to us when we were little, but that was just us being part of a family. They were the little things that set us apart from other families, the little things that made us fit with each other.
And just when I think they have lost their importance, you ask your niece Alyssa if she sees the cloud factory in the distance from our car. And it makes me smile to think of future generations calling each other asses on their birthdays.
Tevye was right. Our traditions show us who we are and where we come from. Without them, our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof. And ten and a half gazillion times more boring.
*X Marks The Spot
X marks the spot (Draw an x on the
child's back)
With a dot, dot, dot (Draw 3 dots)
And a dash, dash, dash (3 dashes)
And a huge question mark (question mark)
Up goes the weasel (Little footsteps with
your fingers up the
spine)
Down goes the weasel (footsteps down
the spine)
Feel a breeze? (blow on their neck)
Here's a squeeze! ( Give a big squeeze!)
*The Madelyn Padelyn Song
Now is the time when mommy tells you good night. But when I try to find the words, there are none. All I can say is
You are the love of my life.
And I will tell you good night, and tell you that I can't wait to see you in the morning.
So,
Night night, sleep tight
Don't let the bedbugs bite
Your nose or your toes,
That's the way the story goes,
Pop goes the weasel!
Madelyn Padelyn, Madelyn Padelyn
Madelyn Padelyn Vahle,
That's all.
Love you forever, like you for always
Forever my baby you'll be.
