Jan 4, 2021
Who can deny the appeal and tradition of a big, beautiful Spanish piñata? They come in mostly all bright colors and sizes, the most popular being a colorful donkey. The idea behind the fun of the piñata is to fill it with chocolate and other candies and popcorn balls made with butter and Karo syrup and wrapped in aluminum foil. The fun part of the celebration is when the children with their long poles attack the piñata. Once all the candy falls to the ground, the kids at the birthday party run in and stuff the candy into their pockets.
Everything leading up to that special birthday party is what the whole celebration is all about. Most people call the birthday the “Sweet 16.” Anyone of Spanish culture calls the birthday “la quinceañera,” which is actually celebrated on the girl’s 15th birthday to mark her passage from girlhood to womanhood. The term is also used for the celebrant herself.
The quinceañera is both a religious and a social event that emphasizes the importance of family and society in the life of a young woman. It is celebrated in Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean, as well as in Latino communities in the United States and elsewhere.
The birthday party features food, music, and dancing along with toasts to the young lady and cutting the fancy birthday cake. The celebration is generally as elaborate as the family can afford and will allow. This event also celebrates the beginning of formal dating.
One Hispanic teenager born on September 24th from Medfield was very surprised when her father hired a mariachi band to serenade not only her but all the people arriving and celebrating Vicky’s special day, an event taking place at 15 Rear Pleasant St. in Medfield. Vicky’s father hired the musicians, who were all from Jamaica Plain. The band leader also the owner of the Spanish restaurant, “Tacos El Charro.” The mariachi band played loud and clear, with their music carrying throughout the neighborhood and across the nearby streets.
The mariachi band played loud and clear, with their music carrying throughout the neighborhood and across the nearby streets.
Mariachi music originated in the countryside, celebrating the struggles, joys, and growth of the people. Mariachi music is often played at weddings and other celebrations in the lives of the Latino people. A mariachi band consists of as many as eight violins, two trumpets and at least one guitar. Traditional mariachi guitars include the vihuela, a high-pitched guitar that provides rhythm, and a bass guitar called a guitarron, which also provides rhythm. Here’s a short video of a mariachi band.
While the band played on, everyone invited brought along a friend and they all sat at picnic tables, fascinated because most of them had never seen a mariachi band play before. They celebrated with sodas, pizzas, Italian sausages, chicken wings, and potato salad, topped off with harlequin ice cream and cake for dessert. Unfortunately, with everything that needed to be attended to, Vicky’s dad didn’t get to enjoy and mingle with many of the guests.
One couple gave Vicky a gold necklace that she came to wear on many occasions, including her graduations from Medfield High School and from Assumption College in June of 2004 when she received her degree in biology.
Of course, what is a Spanish birthday party without breaking the piñata? The colorful donkey piñata hung from a branch four feet above the ground. As there were many young children at the celebration, Vicky stepped back and let the kids have the fun of breaking the piñata and gathering up the candy.
It was a pleasant time so many years ago during the month of September for Vicky’s quinceañera / Sweet 16 birthday party because the occasion coincided with the beginning of autumn and the winds of change. Autumn lets us feel that something special in the air. Yes, it’s fall again, and although we’re fighting the good fight with COVID-19 we wonder where did those three months of June, July and August go. Autumn conjures up back-to-school thoughts and seasonal changes.
Although everyone was prevented by the restrictions involving COVID-19, many families were still able to go to Cape Cod with a chance to swim at Old Silver Beach in Falmouth. The Labor Day weekend was the perfect time to enjoy one last hurrah of the warm weather. To stand at the beach one can’t help becoming sentimental and nostalgic. It dawned on many a Medfield family that the beach was nearly identical after all the many years of a lifetime. Of course, certain elements are always the same, such as the sun above, the salt water, and the same sand beneath our feet. Many of our children are enjoying the same beautiful experience that their parents did in their early youth. There was no mistake about it, Old Silver Beach was still as captivating as ever, still complete with the wondrous sand dunes that would appear like apparitions at low tide.
Returning to School in the COVID-19 Era
Autumn signals an end to our children’s baseball season, right up to the painful final out of our beloved Medfield Little League ballplayers. And it was equally disappointing that the senior class members at Medfield High couldn’t go to their proms, nor to their high school graduations. But the fall season was supposed to bring a transitional simplicity with cool temperature days mixed with others that define an Indian summer. With COVID-19, we’re all being given a preview to the upcoming winter ahead. But better days will be coming while the autumnal wind will come tumbling down while bringing mornings with heavy frost, after the final harvest of those sun-ripened apples, bright orange pumpkins and tomatoes that many people enjoy putting up in jars for the winter. We’ve seen those pumpkins for sale over at the Shaw’s Supermarket that were widely used for Halloween, while the apples brought us the cider. For our young children it was like figuratively spending a Night on Bald Mountain because the kids couldn’t go for trick or treating due to COVID-19. But that Disney production was fun and memorable, if a bit scary, animated feature for the moms and dads who accompanied their children on Halloween. That’s because they’ve definitely gone the extra mile during all these uncertain times.
All around us, the change can be seen and heard in the air. We dream of songbirds flying above the ocean, heading for warmer climates. All the leaves will fall and sometimes the sky will be gray, but times are changing and there is a special ring in the atmosphere. Amidst all the dealing with the pandemic, people are getting together with theirs masks on and talking more while communicating with one another despite the social distancing. We’re enlightened to think of the phrase, When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Because that’s who we are!
How about virtual classes for the young who are attending class at home on their computers. The students are wearing their protective masks, but we all know that some things just never change. While at a place like the Natick Mall, Medfield students are partaking in the usual rituals of buying new clothes. Fashion statements are made regardless of all the transition and adaptability. Teens are always buying new clothes and shoes, but they’re now more interested in spending their money on the latest smart phones. And while they’re at it, they head over to Champs to buy the new and shining footwear, sometimes paying $100 or more for them.
The fall season coincides with the many students returning to school in Medfield. But of course, that welcomed time of year for parents has been abruptly precluded by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. What has usually been considered as the time of the books and grind is now regarded as virtual education. Just a very few years ago, classes in the Medfield school system ended in June and resumed in early September. For many of us, going back to classes in September was cool. At times shopping for new clothes could be intense and frenzied and only second to that of Christmas. From the not-too-distant past, jeans and the hot colors were burgundy and dark blues while backpacks by Eddie Bauer were also the rage.
Going back to school used to mean trying out for football, soccer, track and field, or cheerleading. However, the pandemic arrived and slammed into the curriculum like an unstoppable wrecking ball. While the young seemed to remain resolute with good health, many of them had to attend to their parents or a loved one disabled by the coronavirus. Have we become zombified from all of the onslaught and the constant reminder that the disease is only getting worse with a vaccine set in the not-too-distant future? Will that hope hang in the balance?
Time was when applying for college could lead to acceptance at a good college or university. But even that process has imploded with many colleges resorting to receiving classes via virtual study. It was once a popular belief that one could determine their own destiny. However, like the students of years ago, many found out that the supposed need for attending college turned out to be a fallacy. Some of those young adults failed and flunked out of college. Feeling stigmatized, they wandered around aimlessly for years before settling down. Gone are the days of receiving a student deferment because a volunteer army was established.
It was not that long ago the nation was enjoying the zenith of its success and affluence, not like the chronic fracturing and division of today that has divided the country and our democracy. Where are all those great role models and space cowboys like Alan Shepard, John Glenn, and Neil Armstrong? Where are those pioneers that went to the moon – not because it was easy, but because it was hard? The young have been re-introduced to the space program so they can experience the joy and appreciation of seeing the Pathfinder finally revealing the surface of the fourth planet, Mars. On command from Earth, the 25-pound vehicle named Sojourner was able to drive along the Martian landscape and skillfully maneuver around rocks, down into valleys and climb mountains. True, we didn’t find any extra-terrestrials, nor yet any canals that previously flowed with water, but we are constantly learning how our universe evolved. That is the destiny of mankind to look for other life outside our solar system and discover the daunting task of whether we are alone. Are we just a giant blue rock orbiting a small star in a vast unforgiving universe?
Perhaps re-reassuringly, the young of today can end the pestilence of COVID-19, of hunger and the homelessness we now see all around us. Those who are optimistic should help and let the world live one more day by resolving climate change. The generation of today can rectify these inequities with idealist energy and a sense of challenge.
With or without the crippling effect of the pandemic, we all should be breaking out of the slumber and stop waiting for something to happen, to jump-start our minds into action and imagination. Turn on the jazz of Music Choice, or watch the Rock ‘n Roll Induction Ceremony, listen to a compact disc and enjoy rock, soul, country western, smooth jazz, and classical music. Unlike the final years of the 20th century, students today should bring an end to busing, color barriers, or other segregation lines of demarcation. Just half a century ago, classrooms with idle apprehension of a steamy blackboard jungle, had to endure wanna-be toughs and punks who tried to determine the daily after-school curriculum.
Today’s students in Medfield are hooked up to computers and the technology of their future. Going back to school means being cosmopolitan with a sense of purpose and inevitable knowledge to be gained. So, it’s moving on up to Front Street with the new cast of superheroes who should be standing in anticipation at the crossroads of clever simplicity and strength. They remind one of a new beat generation that can sit in complete comfort while reading the classics like Catcher in the Rye or Lord of the Flies. They will explore the spontaneous corruption written about by William Golding and from J.D. Salinger, exploring what it means to be a troubled, sensitive adolescent without all the censorship of years ago. Their world will be a brave, new society that pursues the causes and cures of diseases like cancer and COVID-19 while conquering the origins of famine, poverty, and racism. Their legacy will be in resolving the mysteries of the universe, and reaching out to feel the warmth, of seeing the light and meaning of the stars above.