Good Old Tradition

I can’t believe I hadn’t even heard of Midler Lost a Tooth before I came to Australia. The whole thing is set in my home country near the turn of the century, but it’s just not a big deal there, so my friends thought they’d take me along to see a performance in Melbourne for my birthday.

Let me tell you, it really spoke to me. The whole plot about Bette Midler being transported back 70 years in time to my own village, while she was in the middle of a dentist appointment? That was weird.

However, it was otherwise a fascinating look into how my culture’s opinion on tradition has changed so much over the years. My grandparents would never have let me kick off the Creation Festival by looking for event marquees for hire. Melbourne people might skim over this, but the festival is something you have to experience under the stars, as people did hundreds of years ago.

I guess the grandparents must have softened in their views, because when we visited over the weekend and Dad broached the subject of hiring a marquee, they both seemed totally up with the idea. Grandma said that there’s been so much rain recently that we couldn’t possibly hold the whole thing outdoors, and Grandpa asked if we could also look into some portable heaters because his joints have been aching a bit recently.

It’s all practical, of course. In the village, the weather is always dry during the Creation Festival (even if it’s not always warm), whereas it’s the middle of winter in Australia and there’s serious potential for it to be miserable. Now, I guess we’re hiring a marquee and heating it up nicely. It didn’t rain last year, but it was still premium-level miserable. Also, a strong gust of wind blew all the finger-food onto the ground, and the ground was premium-level muddy.

I suppose marquees are considered part of the tradition nowadays. That said, the conversation has now shifted to looking around for the best wedding marquee hire company Melbourne has to offer, because I’m now 26 and according to my relatives, that’s well past marrying age.

Some things don’t change.

-Aurro