BY RILEY HAYES
Many people grow up with superstitions about mirrors and pennies, but do those superstitions remain after childhood ends?
Superstitions are widely held but unjustified beliefs in supernatural causation leading to certain consequences of an action or event, or a practice based on such a belief.
Junior Helen Kemper says, “I’m not a very superstitious person, I am very much a realist. Things are the way they are, and doing some tiny little thing isn’t going to change anything.”
Senior Abby Takas doubts superstitions; Takas says, “I don’t believe in them but I think they’re fun.”
However, junior Nina Payatis says she still believes in superstitions such as wearing pajamas inside out for a snowday and heads-up pennies being good luck. “Here’s the key: you gotta do it with confidence,” says Payatis.
25 Mariemont students were surveyed about their superstitions. Of those 25, over 2/3 believe in lucky pennies, and over half of those who believe in them think it matters if the penny is heads up.
According to the Psychic Library, pennies being good luck may come from ancient cultures that used metals to discourage evil or harmful spirits, so when coins and other metals began to be used as currency, the feeling of luck carried.
Other Mariemont students, such as junior Ryan Fields, have rituals they follow before sporting events. Fields wears the same pair of socks during football games and chest bumps teammate Charlie Zack before games.
Senior Lauren Renner has a ritual before cross country meets; Renner brushes her teeth and says, “I like to feel clean and fresh and I feel I perform my best when I feel that way.”
Renner and Fields are not alone. 34.8% of students surveyed have rituals before performances. Some of which involve wearing lucky jewelry, singing songs, or using the restroom.
Many of the students surveyed (87.5%) “knock on wood” to avoid jinxing things, and only one student had no prior knowledge of knocking on wood.
“I do knock on wood,” says sophomore Miller Steele, “but I also walk under ladders, only ‘cause I think it’s funny.” Steele also said that he will wear his pajamas inside out for snow days, but he says, “I only do it on occasion, when I’m really banking on a snow day, because every little thing helps.”
Although many students are superstitious, only 29.2% of students surveyed have rituals to help force a snow day. (I wholeheartedly blame the 70.8% for Friday 1/22).
Junior Grace Haffner says, “superstitions make dreams come true, without superstitions there wouldn’t be any reason to believe.”