Grandmother’s Superstitions Are Still Here
Not Just Grandmother’s Superstitions
When I heard Roy Woods Jr. confess his grandmother superstitions and how she would throw salt over her shoulder, so “the devil wouldn’t follow her around”, it wasn’t foreign to me. While I didn’t know why my family did it, I’d seen my share of salt over the shoulder. The question on this Monday morning was which of Grandmother’s superstitions are here, inside your household? The responses, from inside our studio, were pretty tame. Davy‘s rule “no hats on the bed”, came from his dad. Meredith‘s mom instilled the tried and true “no walking under ladders”, which most understand is highly unacceptable. Orlando brought “never split a pole when walking” and “if you step over a person’s legs, you have to back over them, and allow the floor-sitter to move them so you can continue”. When said, out loud, it sounds very suspect, but the chord that these superstitions struck was genuine.
I’d Like To Shout Out My Superstition
According to Merriam-Webster, “superstition” is defined as “a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation”. I’m not sure who else is feels attacks by the word ignorance but it does seem that the list is incredibly longer, in 2022, than most of us remember. Here is a list of the responses, from our own Tampa audience:
- Spit on a broom if it touches her feet
- Can’t put your purse on the floor, you’ll lose money.
- Place salt and ground red pepper at all entrances to your house to keep people evil spirits out of your house.
- Do not put hats on the bed someone will die.
- Do not wash clothes on New Year’s Eve because you’ll wash a member of your family out (meaning they’ll die).
- Black eye peas on January 1, for good luck.
- If I let somebody hold my baby, and it was a woman on her cycle, it would give my baby colic.
- Do not let a woman be the first one to enter your house when the new year comes because it is bad luck
- Don’t open an umbrella indoors.
- Holding your breath when driving past a graveyard.
- Don’t give someone scissors or knives, as a gift, or you’ll cut them out of your life.
- Put change under floor mat in a new car.
- Don’t face 2 mirrors across from one another or spirit’s can enter.
- On a motorcycle, riding solo with the passenger pegs down, is bad luck and gives a demon a spot to ride with you.
- If a baby is under the age of 1 yr old don’t let them look into a mirror.
