That's Not My Name!

Blog soundtrack:



Besides scents, another one of my favorite things is names.
This blog comes as a result of a botched trip to the dentist last Thursday.

No, the dentist visit wasn’t botched.
That is, I’m in no pain or agony.
The whole visit was botched, as I showed up early for my appointment.
Yeah, but not by minutes, hours, or even days.

Am I usually an overly punctual person or timely in any way?
Um, not really.
It seems that since I am not working, um, time has become irrelevant to me, unless it involves picking up Iz or Nate.
I actually kidded a friend a few weeks ago when he was doing mortgage refinance papers on a Wednesday night. And I said, "Oh, that’s exciting stuff for a Monday night."
He said, “Monday?”
Hey, I’m unemployed, so most every day is the same to me – a holiday! :-)
AND, thus proving, a mind is a terrible thing to waste on unemployment, and that's why I have a blog.
(And, thanks VERY MUCH to my friend who suggested I be a blogger.)

So, when I walked into the dentist’s office, Kathy, the receptionist, saw me and said, “Oh, hi!”
She then paused for a millisecond and said, “Oh, no, wait! You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I’m not?” I asked.
She then told me she’d check, and sure enough, I was THREE weeks early.
Prior to this visit, I had gotten a postcard, and when I checked it later at home, it clearly stated, “JULY 30th at 11:00”.
Oopsie.
Kathy said, “I’d try to squeeze you in because you’re here, but we’re booked solid. It’s a shame you had to come all this way.”
I told her it was no problem and then said that I’d go visit my parents while in the neighborhood.

I have been going to this practice for 20+ years.
It used to be run by Dr. Healy, but he sold it to Dr. Cohen.
I don’t like Dr. Cohen nearly as much as I liked Dr. Healy, but I figure, even though the practice is a good 30 minutes away from my house, I can always drive around town (the town I grew up in) and go see my parents.
Seeing my parents involves driving through the cemetery.

It’s nice, because I stop my parent’s headstone, sweep off leaves, brush away branches, right the pole of my Dad’s Korean War medallion, and then reposition my angel and cat statues.
For the longest time, the angel and cat statue covered a specific part of the headstone.
It is the part under my Dad's name that says “Friend of Anne”.
Anne was my Dad’s girlfriend of six year when he died.
She hid upstairs in my Dad’s bedroom while I sat next to him on his hospital bed and was with him until he died the morning he passed away.
I finally got over that, and I uncovered her name.
Well, every once in a while, if I linger at their headstone too long and I see “Beloved Wife” under my Mom’s name and “Friend of Anne” under my Dad’s name, I get the urge to slam that kitty and angel back together to cover up “Friend of Anne”.
But the urge subsides, and then my conscience says to me, “Get a grip, Jean!”
:-)

Anyway, I love the cemetery.
I love cemeteries in general…so many people…so much history…sad times…happy times.
If you think about, perhaps really hard, cemeteries are full of life, just life that is no longer here.

I love headstones; well, primarily for the art of them.
And secondarily, I love names.
Sometimes I think that’s an odd thing about me.
But, maybe it’s not if you consider I’m a writer.
Okay, so I love names and headstones, and sometimes you can find the most interesting names on headstones.
Oh, I also save names, well, interesting names from obituaries too.

You know, maybe part of my love of names comes from the fact that I feel I have such a boring one.
Jean Marie.
ZZZZzzzzzzz.
How Gidget is that?!?! :-)
My mother told me that she named me "Jean" because:
1) All the girls she knew named Jean were the nicest girls. (I was going to be James if I was a boy) and
2) Our surname was Szymczak; therefore, my Mom felt compelled to give my siblings and I all short and easy-to-pronounce first names.
By the way, in later years, my Mom divulged that she was thinking of naming me Leacadia (Polish name), but she wimped out, because apparently in 1962, it wasn't cool to be ethnic, especially when you had a surname with very few vowels. :-)

Here’s a name from the obituary of a local woman who had five surnames appended to her first name.
Okay, while the five surnames thingie was phenomenal, the obituary was written like a TV-movie of the week!

Ruth was 93 when she died; her full name was…drum roll, puuuuhhhhleeeeease…

Ruth Christine (Hansen) Cutler Breest Smith Cornwall Bauernfeind

This quote from the obit is my favorite: "Ruth, a flamboyant and generous lady, had a real zest for life. She had five marriages that spanned the coasts of America."

And, I loved this part…"In the late 1950s, she married Cal Smith of Massachusetts, in a together-apart relationship that lasted until his death in the 1970s".
A together-apart relationship??!!
“She met and married widower Paul Cornwall of Westford in 1974. This was her one true long-lasting marriage, spanning 14 years.”
The whole obituary is like a soap-opera.
It mentions that her first husband had died, but the obituary made no mention of how he died.
For a moment, I sensed he might be buried in Ruth’s backyard given all the marriages, and that Ruth might have been a card carrying member of the “Black Widow” society, but I figure any woman who makes it through one man, and then goes back for seconds, thirds, fourths, and fifths, well, she LOVES men, plain and simple.

Okay, so here are a few of my favorite names…
Virginia Pynn
(Doesn’t it sound so George Eliot?!)
Subrahmanyam Satyanarayana
(Say this fast ten times with Doritos in your mouth whilst thinking about rubber baby buggy bumpers.)
Juan Gerardo de la Fuente Tovar
Ziggy Wesolowski

I remember one time about 10 years ago, my friend, Randy, asked me if I wanted to go into Boston to a club to see a band he was working with.
The club happened to be right next to the Boston Ramrod, which then was a gay mens club.
I remember listening to the band, and while doing so, saw two men, who were in front of me, kiss passionately. It was the first time I had ever seen that.
I remember thinking how happy and in love they look, because at the time I was really, really single.
And, one glass of wine later, I was dancing with both of them!

So, I told Randy, I’d go only if he called me “Lee Sinclair” the whole night.
Yes, I wanted to be someone else for the night.
How long did that last?
Well, Randy was great, introducing me to people as Lee, but as the night wore on, it became apparent to me that it didn’t really matter whether your name was Lee or Jean Marie.
The music sounded the same when I was Lee, I danced the same (quite wonderfully) when I was Lee, I still met nice people when I was Lee, the wine tasted the same when I was Lee, and after two glasses of wine, I had forgotten all about responding when people called me Lee! :-)

The name saga continues…

In March, I went to Nantucket and there is a lovely cemetery nearby.

My favorite headstone is there.
It’s a headstone that marks where three friends are buried together.



This will be VERY similar to my headstone, but it’ll be me and two cats.
“Here lies Jean, Fluffy, and Tigger.”

Actually, I love this one also, and I want this statement to be on my headstone.



AND, I also want these on my headstone, too.

"But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully hidden lives, and rest in unvisited tombs."

~George Eliot (Middlemarch)

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Yes, of course, I will have the first billboard headstone.
And, I'm surprised no one's thought of that yet!
Hmmm, must be cemetery zoning laws or something like that, huh?

So, as I went through the cemetery in Nantucket, I came across these name gems:

Tabitha Turner Dumper Krauthoff
I love this name, and here's her headstone.



And there was also…

Klingelfuss
Goggeshall
Erwin Rumsey Hilts

Tangent Name and Headstone Note:
Francis Wright Davis!
Who is he?
Weren’t you saying to yourself the other day, “I SO love my power steering. Hmmm, I SO wonder who invented it?”



Well, it was the ONE and the ONLY Francis Wright Davis, AND he’s buried on Nantucket to boot!
I bet you never thought that my blog would be a learning experience, did you?
Well, when you answer that question correctly on a game show one day, you will buy me a pair of shoes to thank me for it, k? :-)

So, collecting names is not a lucrative thing like the kid I saw on TV the other day who collects Pez dispensers.
Wow, that must have been a small fortune he had in his bedroom at his parent’s house.
Surely, his collection could pay for his retainers when he needs them, huh? :-)

In a way, these names amuse me, and I like to think that they may motivate me to write stories in which I can use them all.
Um, but that hasn’t happened yet! :-)
I mean, think about it.
Can you envision the scenario that will unfold when Ziggy Wesolowski tries to get a date with Tabitha Turner Dumper Krauthoff? :-)