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Guy Fawkes Day, Fireworks and All (“Country” 14)
As I write this, it’s November 5, an unseasonably warm (and welcome) day in northeastern Vermont. Thank goodness the 4-inch snowfall from Monday/Tuesday has melted, and I cleared a few more tasks off my “get ready for winter” list.
While working in the golden sun, hauling first some gravel to repair the driveway, then not-quite-composted veggies and eggshells out of the bin so it’s ready for the winter offerings, I thought about Guy Fawkes Day. No, not about the English history, which involves a traitor who gets “burned in effigy” (!) on November 5 each year over across the ocean, with fireworks and bonfires.
I was thinking about the little rhyme the English use for the date, and how it once failed my parents. “Remember, remember, the fifth of November!”
The problem happened when I was about five, so let’s guess 1957. In those days, a trans-Atlantic phone call cost a lot of money, about as much as a modest dinner out for two. My parents always stayed home on my grandfather Ernest’s birthday, so he could place the call from England to them instead, and they’d say Happy Birthday to him. And his birthday was November 4, so they’d chant the Guy…
