Superstition

 Week 21: Superstition

Thirteen month old baby

Broke the looking glass

Seven years of bad luck

The good things in your past

When you believe in things

That you don’t understand

Then you suffer

Superstition ain’t the way

--Stevie Wonder, Superstition from Talking Book 

I once had a conversation with our dog’s veterinarian to discuss his health. She asked how he had been since his last visit, and I answered by saying, “No seizures for four months. Fingers crossed.” She immediately rapped on the door of the examination room and said, “Knock on wood.”

Superstitions like crossing fingers and knocking wood are ingrained in our society, and these two examples and plenty more were a very real part of my childhood. For my mother there were a number of ways to invite trouble and there were ways to avoid it. At our house if the salt shaker fell over, some of it went over the left shoulder. A guaranteed way to ward off the devil although she never explained how that worked. Breaking a mirror meant seven years of whoa, although I cannot remember breaking any; bullet dodged. Speaking of mirrors, babies were not ever held up to see their own reflections. Again, no explanation offered. Stepping on sidewalk cracks meant bad news for mothers everywhere. Black cats were trouble, (we have Pope Gregory IX who declared in the thirteenth century that black cats are the incarnation of evil.) But on a brighter note, an itchy palm means money is on its way. She had a list, and exceptions were rare.

I can’t tell you how many Orioles’ baseball games we attended together. In the exciting, tense situations in a game that prompted the fans to voice their encouragement, Ruthie did her part. She invariably crossed the index and middle fingers on both hands. Worked about as well as screaming I guess.

Knocking on wood has become an almost universal tradition to avoid misfortune. (For Ruthie when knocking on wood seemed appropriate, she would often just gently tap the side of her head.) She was not alone. Apparently “knocking wood” is the most common superstition among the world’s cultures. Theories of its origin abound.  Some believe it originated in a seventeenth century children’s game of tag called “Tiggy Touch Wood” in which players got immunity from being tagged by touching something made of wood. On the American side of the pond we say “knock on wood” while our British compatriots say “touch wood.” The tradition varies throughout the world. Poles and Russians touch unpainted wood. Turks knock twice. In Latin America people knock on wood that has no legs (e.g. Trees do not have legs but tables and chairs do.) Italians touch steel. 

Ruthie would never, and I mean absolutely not ever, walk under a ladder. She probably didn’t know how this got started, but I’d bet the mortgage she would not have cared. It wasn’t going to happen no matter who dreamt that one up. The bad luck of walking under a ladder most likely has a basis in religion. The triangle formed by a leaning ladder was said to represent the holy trinity, and surely trouble would ensue when symbolically disrupting the sacred threesome.

Ruthie left me in 1999, but she’s never far from my mind especially when I see examples of her many superstitions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CFuCYNx-1g