What people here are up to at the beginning of May...

First of May definitely is a special date in Austria, and I´m not referring to International Workers Day but to the erecting of the May poles, fir trees stripped of bark and decorated with colourful ribbons and fir wreaths, usually set up at the village square, with scantily clad males trying to get to the top of it, which usually ends with abrasive burns, that´s why girls do not compete often. Before the feminists among my friends list begin to verbally attack me: I put the matter of intelligence before the matter of honour. Smooth skin tops hard-won Pretzel. Enough said. It´s all about fertility and growth, with brass-bands and dirndl dresses and robust lads in lederhosen, but with the erecting of the tree comes the theft of the same which often causes accidents, be it because of too much booze and the tree toppling in the wrong direction, or not toppling at all at that moment though the trunk is notched and waits for the next blast of air to finally fall over, in this case one better calls for the fire department. The sawed down tree is brought to another place, the owner buys it back in the form of lots of free beer for the thieves. I found two really funny pictures in the regional dailies:



This one was taken in Vienna, where students managed to carry off a May pole, albeit a small one, and gave it a lift in the subway.



The second picture shows some pensioners, who recaptured their tree from a group of regulars, who had stolen the retirement home´s May pole for years. This year the pensionists did not want to pay the beer...isn´t that a cute rollator parade?