Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!

Well, April is gone (at last) and we’re all launching into a more hopeful May around these parts.

Though the first week in May is a bigger deal elsewhere around the globe, it’s pretty much just another week locally – though this weekend’s Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Country Club promises to be fairly significant, with the shiniest all-star field since the Masters.

Then, of course, there’s a little horse race in Kentucky that’ll be garnering attention Saturday, though even that’s not likely to outshine the coronation of King Charles III across the pond.

The coronation will dominate local TV coverage starting around 6 a.m. or so, beginning at Westminster Abbey and proceeding, with unmatched pomp and circumstance, from there.

But in ordinary times, it’s interesting to look at what many people around the world do on the first day of May.

In the old USSR it was the day Krushchev or whoever was at the Soviet helm would parade all those rockets and tanks and goose-stepping soldiers.

Word is Putin’s trying to revive the tradition, though it’s not sure whether he’ll be doing it in the streets of Moscow or Kiev.

In England you might see gaily-clad people doing what is called the Morris dance, bouncing around with sticks or swords or handkerchiefs, an English folk dance that dates back at least six hundred years and will likely be a bit more pronounced this year, what with a new king and all.

You’ll likely also see a few Maypoles here and there, perhaps a pageant to crown a May queen, all in good fun to celebrate the onset of Spring and all the promise the season brings.

Among the largest of such festivals occurs in Edinburgh and Glasgow, with some events on the eve of May’s blossoming, like the Beltane Fire Festival. Another tradition is when young lasses wash their faces in the morning dew to assure lifelong beauty. Ah, Scotland.

It’s known as Vappu in Finland, another place where the Celtic holiday is a big deal and the citizenry quaffs a special spiked lemonade called ‘sima’ while launching balloons or dancing around with paper streamers.

In Estonia they concentrate on the inauguration of Spring, in France they celebrate lilies of the valley, and in Germany Walpurgisnacht revelry begins the night before and often includes bonfires that roar into the morning while celebrants across the country wrap and decorate Maibaums, their unmistakeable Maypoles.

Ireland celebrates the feast of Bealtaine, in Bulgaria it’s Irminden, Romanians call it Arminden, and in Hawaii it’s also called Lei Day!

It’s a holiday only in the Northern Territory of Australia, where the occasion is marked on the first Monday in May, and while the U.S. doesn’t ‘officially’ recognize May Day (it became ‘politically incorrect’ during the Cold War), a number of cities and states will still have events, though on a fairly small scale.

And then, of course, there’s the distress call: “Mayday, mayday, mayday!” (properly said three times), an international call for help believed to have been created in England by radio operator Frederick Stanley Mockford in 1923 to create something easily understood by those on land or sea or in the air. It’s believed to have been derived from the French “m’aider,” meaning “come help me.”

You might remember it was shouted recently when an airliner’s wing lit up at Charlotte Douglas International. Thankfully no one was hurt and the plane was extinguished safely.

Any way you look at it, it’s nice that calmer, if cooler than usual weather is promised around these parts – for at least a little while – isn’t it?

Here’s to a bright and beautiful May for all of us…