Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The Maypole of Merry Mount

The Maypole of Merry Mount

Merry Mount is the original name of Quincy, MA. There's a bit of trivia I feel I ought to retain.

Who were these folk at Merry Mount? They sound like a bunch of hippies, born 240 years early on the wrong coast. Peter Palfrey asks whether they should cut the hair of the Lord of May. Absolutely, and let's get rid of all this gayety while we're at it.

I love the paragraph of backstory that begins "Two hundred years ago, or more..." Sounds like we almost had San Francisco next door to South Boston but for the intrepid intervention of Endicott and his bunch. I wonder did they ship all the green warriors off to Vermont?

Faced with their protestations of love and sacrifice, Endicott relents and shows mercy on the newlyweds (certain they will raise their children in the faith). I don't know about that. Maybe in moment of his own twisted mirth, the venerable puritan decided marriage was punishment enough.

Hawthorne disagrees. Although they never experienced the gay life again, the couple "never wasted one regretful thought on the vanities of Merry Mount."

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