Newlywed Hazing Shivaree

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Tony Brandenburg from Encinitas.

Hiya, Tony. Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

I was listening to the show the other day, and I was thinking about a word that I heard when I was probably six years old, and the word is chivalry.

I don’t know how to spell it, whether it’s an S-H or a C-H, but our family was originally from Indiana.

And it was just after the World War II, my dad came home from the World War II with a wife and two children, my sister and I, four and five years old.

And it was a very rural community.

My dad woke us up one night about 8 o’clock and said, don’t be alarmed. There’s going to be gunfire and a lot of noise, and there’s going to be a lot of people in the house who are going to have a party.

This was probably late spring, and lo and behold, next thing we knew, there were trucks driving up and women coming in with food, and we heard people shooting off guns and men doing what men do in the spring.

And it was a giant party, and I said, Daddy, what is this?

He said, this is chivalry.

And I thought, I had never heard the word before, or I’ve never heard it afterwards.

And I didn’t know what it meant. A party, a homecoming? I had no idea.

And was this right after your family got back? Or had your parents just gotten married?

My father had just been discharged from the Navy. And it was within a month or so after we got back.

And it was sort of a homecoming, housewarming. I didn’t know what it was.

Wow. I’m so excited to hear about a real-life shivery.

I only saw one in the movie Oklahoma.

I don’t recall seeing it in Oklahoma, but what is it?

It’s a party. Here’s a definition. I’m going to read one to you.

It is a compliment extended to every married couple made up of beating tin pans, blowing horns, ringing cowbells, playing horse fiddles, caterwauling, and in fine, the use of every disagreeable sound possible to make night hideous.

Well, that’s what it was. Sounds about right, huh?

It was really that. And I’ve never heard the word sense.

I have seen Oklahoma, but I don’t remember that word or that concept used in Oklahoma.

It’s an old-fashioned tradition. It’s not around much anymore.

I mean, there’s a little bit of carrying on in this way in Louisiana still, but for the most part, people only know it from the books and the movies now.

But it used to be so incredibly common that you find it come up again and again in literature throughout the 1800s and the early 1900s.

Well, this was 1946 when it happened, and again, it was a very rural community.

And it was just a big, and it lasted. The funny thing was, it lasted till morning.

And I remember saying to dad, where’s everybody going? And dad said, they have to go home and do the milking.

So I wasn’t sure as a kid if milking had something to do with it or whatever.

Grant, my understanding of it is it’s usually a kind of hazing of a newly married couple, right?

Yes, it usually is. And perhaps the fact that your father came back with a wife meant that it kind of was grandfathered in under that definition.

Well, great word. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Thank you very much for taking my call, and thank you very much for clarifying that for me now.

I wish my parents were still alive. I could share it with them.

Share it with the generations to come, and that’s good enough, right?

Thank you.

Thank you, Tony.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye, Tony.

Well, have you ever been a part of a chivalry or heard about one?

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