May Day used to rock in Utah

May Day arrives this week, with its odd mix of cheerful gift baskets and labor protests.

The big picture: Utah doesn't partake in either of those traditions with much enthusiasm. But it used to.

• This is old news, our weekly parade back in time.

Erin, here! I've long been surprised by the absence of May Day festivities in Salt Lake — especially the spring celebrations with secret gifts of flowers and candy in homemade paper baskets.

• It's faded from other places, too — though I grew up celebrating it in Iowa.

How it works: You fold a basket or weave one out of colorful paper strips, fill it with popcorn, candy and whatever weedy flowers are blooming — dandelions, clovers, violets, grape hyacinths — and leave it outside a friend's door.

• Then you ding-dong-ditch and watch from a hiding place as they find their anonymous surprise.

Why it matters: It's astounding that Utah — Utah! — abandoned a holiday that involves sugar, crafting and pestering neighbors.

• C'mon guys! You do Halloween so well.

Yes, but: It used to be a big thing. For over a century, newspapers around the state were filled with notices of children's parades , maypoles , festivals , school projects , beauty pageants , dances , parties and even a grand ball .

• After the 1970s, Utahns began to talk about May Day as a thing of the past .

The intrigue: A 1970 article notes the holiday's " bad connotation " — presumably the demonstrations that have long made May Day a rally for labor and the political left in other countries.

• Those were especially prominent in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The bottom line: Flowers and candy were no match for the Red Scare.

Previously in Old News

• The Hi-Fi murders shocked the nation 50 years ago
• How "SLC Punk!" brought Utah counterculture to the masses
• When the American Indian Movement protested the Mormon Church
• The mythical hole in the Great Salt Lake
• Deranged Easter bonnets

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