Day 36
Day 4 of on the road travels brings me to pose such a question. What IS in a name?
I’ve driven 1300 miles on this trip … and have seen my fair share of signage along the way … highway signs, town names, street names, shopping centers, stores, state parks and the like. And I have a few questions and thoughts …
Who the heck thought that Dress Barn was a nice name for a woman’s clothing store? Either it was a guy who didn’t like women or someone incredibly cruel and stupid. Just the mere thought of going to a DB makes me feel like a heifer. Seriously. What were they thinking?
And who named the state park in northern Kentucky … Big Bone Lick? Fred Flintstone? His dog Dino? Are there dinosaur remains there? Who said, “Gee, let’s name the new state park this … “.
While driving and reading all the town names on the map and on the signs it made me think of where I grew up and where my folks live now … they live in Park Ridge. Pa … Park Ridge … say it aloud and it’s soft and pretty. Kind of like how it is. Whereas Niles, where I grew up, sounds not as refined and nasally …. Niles. And, well, kind of how it is.
I passed a store called the Regal Beagle. What the heck was it? A sports bar? A pet shop? A place to buy a crown for Snoopy? Turned out it was a men’s clothing store. I wonder if it had been a pet shop prior to the clothing store and they didn’t want to pay for a new sign. I didn’t get it. Bad name.
And then there were the towns I passed or saw on the map … Milford’s Nob (kind of liked that one) … and Leiper’s Fork … made me think that if you weren’t Daisy Duke or married to your cousin you’d be out of place. (It’s supposed to be a really cute artsy community!)
Ah names. I go out with 2 friends and we laugh at our genderless names … Les, Pat, Marti. We could be 3 guys out to dinner. Might as well bring along Sam and make it 4!
I had Gertie’s name all picked out for her long before I set eyes on her … I wanted a baby pug and her name was going to be Princess Gertrudal the Wonder Poodle (who was not a poodle)! Along came Gertie!
Moby’s name was Silver until one day I found her in the pond – all 100 pounds of her with goldfish marooned on her back. She was making soft woo-wooing noises (so happy) that she reminded me of a whale … and … ta da … Moby the Great White Whale (lab) had a name change!
We had Sam’s name picked out before Ted was born. He was to be an Andrew or Troy or Nicholas or Graham. However when people kept referring to him as Andy or Nicky those names went out the window. When my Dad kept commenting that he would be named after a cracker – we threw that name out as well. He would have been named Troy except when he popped out he looked like a Teddy … and well, the rest is history.
In any case – if you are needing to name something choose wisely. I just know I’ll be thinking second thoughts if I have to go to Dress Barn.