Heavy, Heavy Hangover

Don't be worried.

This isn't a blog about how I have given in to the stresses of life and decided to take up drinking. This is just a momentary step back into my more carefree childhood.

Tonight the youngest son, the hubby and I were gathered around the dinner table and for some reason (I'm sure it was something someone said, but I can't remember what ) I began to recite a familiar rhyme from the birthday parties of my youth.

Heavy, heavy hangover
thy poor head.
What do you wish this person
with a bump on the head.

The son immediately questioned my sanity and when I looked to the hubby for support or some sign of understanding, he just looked back at me with a totally blank stare.  No help there.

I know I am not the only person who has experienced this tradition in their lifetime.  In fact I'm positive since  I wasn't the only guest at the afore mentioned birthday parties, but apparently this is not the common childhood memory that I thought it to be.

I remember this activity done in two different, but similar ways. At gift opening time someone, usually the special guest's mother, would stand behind the birthday boy or girl, select a present and while holding it over the child's head would repeat the rhyme adding a gentle tap on the head with the gift as the word "bump" was spoken. The recipient would then wish the gift giver, which  up to this point was a mystery, a gift as well.  This was usually something totally out of the realm of possibility such as a million dollars, or a swimming pool or a trip to Africa and then the giver would respond with great enthusiasm, thus identifying him or herself to the birthday child.

My other memory is the same except the rhyme reciter was the gift giver himself and the bump on the head was usually a very energetic thwap!

I explained all of this to the men at the table and they continued to act like I was more than a little bit strange.

Of course, after dinner was over, I had to do a little internet research in an attempt to discover the origins of this tradition and to determine if it was really as rare of a ritual as they seemed to think.

I didn't find too much to report.

I did derive that it may come from an ancient childhood game.  That it was practiced most frequently in small town Utah, by Mormons, and is actually referred to in the book "Mama Married a Mormon", but it has been played as far away as Iran. Also, the poem sometimes differs from the one of my memory to be "heavy, heavy hangs over" or "my forehead".

But, the best insight I found, and the one I enjoyed the most, was discovered on a website from the United Kingdom called the phrase finder.  In a response by Dr. Jones to a question asked by R regarding this topic he stated:

"I believe the custom died out in affluent countries when the size and weight of gifts increased and the custom was found to cause unacceptable collateral damage to the upcoming generation of gift recipients.  It did, however, have a Darwinian purpose in prehistoric times, when clubs and similar weapons were handed out as gifts and the thin skulls of the weakest were crushed whilst the thick headed survived to perpetuate the custom: some of these survivors are with us to this very day."

Apparently the reason so few individuals have memory of playing this game as a child, is that many who participated in this activity failed to reach adulthood unscathed.

Another reason to be grateful that I grew up a thick headed Mormon.

Today I am grateful for

the sacrament. Due to Stake Conferences and staying with the grandson last Sunday it had been almost a month since I had the opportunity to participate in this sacred ordinance and I have missed it.

my ward family. I have felt the love and prayers of the "family I attend church with each Sunday" so strongly during the past couple of weeks and it was great to get to meet with them again today.

ham and cheesy potatoes.