Symbols I Have Known

 

I recently ran across some little articles with pictures of Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and Karoline Leavitt, the White House Press Secretary, wearing necklesses with gold crosses.  As you might imagine, those attract responses from ardent supporters and ardent haters, going from “lovely and devoted” to “cartoonishly large cross.”  It is nearly impossible to conceal an opinion.  I found that when I selected “automatically” the words “supporters” – a largely neutral term – and “haters” – a negatively loaded term - in the last sentence.  But I decided to keep it there both because I like them and to make this minor point. 

One of those articles asked “should be it allowed” for them to wear the crosses.

OK, that’s one’s easy in the U.S.  Certainly it’s “allowed.”  That is the First Amendment in action. 

A better question is whether it is appropriate, and that’s where the juice of the matters of the symbols that we wear and display lies.

We wear and display on our cars, our homes, our walls and anywhere else we please various symbols.  Some symbols are obvious – Cross equals Christian; Star of David or yarmulke or menorah, Jewish; star and crescent (Hilāl) or hijab or Arabic calligraphy for Allah or the color green, Islam.  Let’s see, the Maltese cross (fire fighters), the Star of Live (EMS), the square and compasses (Masonic), the gavel or Scales of Justice (the law), the Rainbow (LGBTQ, etc.), the beehive (Mormon), the Eagle, Globe & Anchor (Marine Corps), and on and on.  If one chooses to wear a symbol, one identifies themselves[1] with a particular identity and a set of rough ideas.

One big issue is that symbols are not static.  In my lifetime, the rainbow has gone from either a pretty little symbol or the solemn promise of the God (pre-Christ) to not flood the earth again (which if you think about it was globally impossible and valid only regionally) to a symbol for the LGBTQ part of society.  A few years ago, some folks bought a clapboard home right across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas.   That Church was known at the time for traveling across the US to protest at anything remotely connected to the LGBTQ life.  (The churches website is at “GodHatesFags.com,” which is just another demonstration of how far the First Amendment truly goes.)  The folks across the street painted the clapboards in a rainbow.  (I thought it looks nice and happy and sunny, and I love bright colors.)  The church freaked, but there was nothing they could do about it.  (Other than bitch.)[2]

 

Have you ever seen a swatiska displayed seriously?  Some few guys have swastika tattoos, and we know what they mean.  I mean, we know NOW.  If one had a swatiska tattoo around 1900, we might have said “Nice tattoo” or even “What’s that?”  The swastika was then known as the hakenkreuz, a common symbol used by Buddhists, Hindus, Jains and other as a symbol of good luck.  The Finns used it as a national symbol.  When the Soviet Union tried to invade Finland in the 1930’s (frequently a forgotten conflict buried in WWII), the aircraft of the Finns bore the swastika.  The Finns had zero to do with racism, anti-semitism, and the rest of the German-Aryan stuff at the time.  But if you were to see some picture or painting of one of those aircraft, you would – naturally – assume the worst.

I play strange little games with myself and occasionally share them.  Sometime back, I posted two flags:

And

Nobody bit.

The first symbol is the “Bonnie Blue Flag,” which was one of the flags of the Confederate States of America.  It even had a lively song written about it, “The Bonnie Blue Flag.”  The second symbol is the flag of Somolia with the five-pointed “Star of Unity.”  So do you salute one and abhor the other?   OK, which?

They are just flags.  The represent something in each case but they do not of themselves mean squat.  Neither does the swastika or hakenkreuz.  Neither does the bald eagle holding arrows and olive leaves.  Neither does any symbol.  They only remind us of things,

That is not to say that symbols are not important TO HUMANS.  I might wear a cross or chalice (the latter being the symbol of my brand of Christianty.)   I have one tattoo:

Works for me.  If you don’t want one, don’t get it.  It won’t bother me.

I display other symbols  - the EMS Star of Life, the world and American Scouting symbol, Masonic symbols (in some cases foggy ones, for instance a visual demonstration of the 47^th problem of Euclid, which I find funny for some odd reason).  I have a Gadsden flag that I wear on some lapels, and I resent the fact that some radical people have tried to reduce that to a simplistic political badge.  If people misread what I mean when I wear it, screw ‘em ‘cause I know what I mean. 

I use other symbols for no reason at all, they are just pretty. 

Some symbols that I see are obscure.   There is this:

I think only Gary will immediately recognize that one.  It’s maritime flag codes for India-November-Romeo-India, in turn a REALLY cryptic Christian symbol.  It’s impossible to use commonly because it take too many bytes to use as part of a signature and so forth.  But the thought counts.

There are times when the use of some symbols are ill-advised.  I never wear any symbol when I have a jury trial.  That might lead an odd juror to make conclusions contrary to the facts of whatever case I’m trying.  I resent that and I should not have to do that but I don’t make the rules and as long as I practice law I have to live with it whether I like it or not.

And sometimes, symbols are merely pretty and nice to look at.   I was at a luncheon put on by the local Scout council this weekend.  The fine lady sitting across from me had a delightful lapel pin, a large (an inch or so) yellow rose.  Maybe she spent time in Texas.  Or maybe it was just a pleasant decoration.  I might copy it.

It’s not for me to say what symbols you wear or display.  I try not to care, but I have to work at it occasionally.  In an ideal world, people would tolerate symbols and ideas commonly associated with them.

It’s not an ideal world.  That doesn’t mean that we don’t quit trying and stop to try to understand one another. 

Mizpah!

 

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[1] Yes, I know that’s technically bad grammar as the little gremlin stuck in my computer points out.  I don’t know how to get the little bastard out without deleting my whole word processor and I might not choose to just so I can grump and grumble.   In any event, I’m not yet happy with my screed on the need for our language to include “permissible” gender-neutral words, so I will continue to use the plural.  So there.

[2] That remind me of the time that the Westboro Baptist Church came to Fairmont after a gay guy was killed for being gay.   A lady deputy friend told me to “Cut the shit and leave, Roger, or I’m going to arrest you for inciting a riot.”  Doris was serious, but mistaken.  I was NOT trying to incite a riot.  I was trying to provoke the head Westboro guy into a fight.  I accused Doris of being a spoil sport, but I settle down ‘cause she was serious.  Anyway, I was younger and having some fun.

Engine 91

 On the way home from work, I came up the Ohio side of the Ohio River.  In a field, sitting alone, I saw a fire engine, obviously "retired."  It was a white custom cab, trimmed in blue, and had "Engine 91" in big blue letters on the side.

We tend to "personalize" the apparatus we have ridden on. The first ambulance at Station 20 was a 1960-something International Travel-All which was donated by the Power Company.  It had seen HARD use as a power company vehicle, but the gang which founded Station 20 rehabbed it into an ambulance.  You had to crouch over in the back, and it had an old fashion pursuit-light mechanical siren. It sounded like a REAL siren, not the sick imitations that are used now.  It was called "The Goat."  It was not used to transport patients by the time I started, but it still was used as a utility vehicle,  It was a standard shift, and I don't think it had synchronizers, but the Goat would RUN.  I still remember taking it through the gears smoothly and feeling all superior.  The Goat set the record for the Fairmont General to WVU Hospital at 14 minutes with John Green driving and Dr. Dollison on board yelling "Can't you make this thing go faster?!"  John used to tell that story and we never tired of it.

We had a Dodge van converted to a high-top by Wayne (which still builds school buses), and it was named "Proud Mary."   John's son-in-law, Roger Plyman, named it, and I never figured out why.

What was Engine 91 named?  That it has the "1" says it was at least for a time the first due engine.  It was old enough and in good enough condition that it probably was an engine at a volunteer company.  I just know that as the fire fighters came to the station, some chief told somebody to drive 91, and someone to drive the squad or the ambulance or whatever else went.  Seldom does only one apparatus leave the station.  When I'm teaching somebody to drive, I tell them that apparatus are like wolves, they run in packs.  91 appears to be about 30 years old.  I bet it has some stories to tell - asleep at night until the dispatch set the tones off, which in turn set the house siren off.  Then, she shook herself awake and waited for the driver and crew to charge into the night.  She knew - everybody knew - that they were all needed.  Everybody knew that they were running some risks.  But they were needed.

A few years ago, I saw Station 20's first squad, Squad 29, sitting in a field on Dudley Fork in Marion County.  The Baker boxes had already been removed and presumably it was destined for farm duty.  It was a 1957 GMC which started life as a radio van for civil defense.  The same people who converted the Goat converted it into Squad 29.  It was also a standard shift, no synchronizers, with a splitter on the rear end.  It would also really roll when you got it into fourth-high.  Whoever put the air horn in put the switch a little too low, so when you shift it to third-high, the air horn blew.  It did end up with a big dent in the side.  I was riding officer, JT was driving and we crossed the interstate and were hit by an elderly couple who stopped for us but were hit in turn by a drunk.  JT still claims that I told him it was clear to cross, and I will deny that to my dying day.  Since JT is not here with me to speak, I'll leave it at that.  But seeing Squad 29 in that farmer's field was sad.

I also bet that people who drove and rode Engine 91 are sad when they see it.  And I know that they remember fires and accidents they went to with the engine.

That's one of the minor sadnesses that emergency service - and age - presents.

But I bet Engine 91 still dreams of what was its best and its exciting years.  I can't help but wonder, will Engine 91, the Goat, Squad 29, Proud Mary and so many other trucks be present in heaven?  I hope so.  

Mizpah!

R

Please "Americanize" Your Name

 OK, the title is a “joke on the square.”  Who is dumb enough to know me and accept that I would say that seriously.  Oh, probably some humorless bot someplace will squeak, but another part of the joke is that it raises some legitimate concerns in a trans-cultural society. 

Yeah, I just made up that word.  “Multi-cultural” sounds like a permanent thing, like a half-full jar of green marbles into which your slowly pouring some yellow, purple and red marble and occasionally stirring.  We’re really in the first phase of a transcultural society, where we live the very beginning spirit of “E pluribus unum,” that hopeful (yet so far unfulfilled) statement that “out of many, we make one.”

This little writing started when I was doing a card to a doctor today.  The doc saved my life (by recognizing some potentially fatal condition and then no-kidding curing it) and doing so in the kindest manner I have ever encountered.  I had to have my PCP write her name down, because it is obviously a transliteration from another alphabet to English. 

That got me thinking about names generally and “foreign” names in particular.  By “foreign,” I mean not common in the country I live in. And there has long been in America – a probably everywhere – a push (or maybe a pull) to have a more common name.  Igor Igorivich Borodin is harder to spell that John Smith.  Oddly, we expect that when we meet either one, we have different expectations.  That’s on us, not on John or Igor. 

My surname first appeared with an 7 or8 times great grandfather who stepped ashore in the seventeenth century at Hampton Roads, probably as an indenture servant.  Without doing the math[1], the paternal surname tradition in our culture caused me to bear a surname born by less than 2% of my ancestors.  I could just as well be named Gates, Smith, Elliot, or Staib or things I don’t remember as I write.[2]  There is a family tradition – totally unproved – that there is some American Indian name from a foundling in the nineteenth century.  However, the American Indian naming tradition was/is far different from the Main Line American custom. The surname I bear is “Curry.”  My great times 1 or 2 grandfather changed it from “Currey.”  According to the late Rev. Truman Lawyer and the late Marilyn Greenleaf, the custodians of family records, it came from “Currie” about the time when the lowland Scots where chased from Scotland and ultimately arrived in the Western Hemisphere.  The surname “Curry” is modestly unusual, short and easy tp pronounce, so it serves me.

When people emigrated from elsewhere to North America, they often changed their name to something they thought was more American.  Part of the reason is that (probably) genetic us-them thing that leads us to make judgments WAY before we have enough information.  In the movie The Untouchables, there is a scene where the old, tough police sergeant (Sean Connery) engages a rookie officer (Andy Garcia) about whether “George Stone” (the Garcia character) had changed his name from an Italian one.  That was common – and we here in the 21^st century say shameful – practice.  It turns out that Connery was provoking Garcia to observe his behavior under stress.  (It worked.)  People have changed names later on in life for similar reasons.  Dwight Eisenhower came from a paternal family called “Eisenhauer,” and that was changed to “de-germanize” the name.  (DDE graduated West Point – I think[3] - the Class of 1911.  German names were a problem and it only got worse.)

So what should we do about the practice of changing names.

First, relax.  It’s legal.  The patronymic naming system is part-law and part-custom.  It has served for hundreds of years on the one hand and on the other, it’s not written in stone.  Also, maybe there’s a “who cares” somewhere in my mind.  What you call yourself if your problem and your business.  Xi Jinpeng defected, his new buddies would have a hell of a time pronouncing his name correctly.  For that matter, were I to print “Xi Jinpeng” in a Chinese newspaper, the only comment that would produce is “who stuck some random English letters into our paper?” 

Now, back to the doctor.  She is from the Indian subcontinent and her name sounds like the letters and cadence that names from there seem to me to.[4]  I find that some doctors from that region are referring themselves to patients they meet briefly as “Dr. Dev.”  Apparently, the surname “Devabakthuni” is common in India, sorta like “Smith” and those doctors frequently shorten it to “Dr. Dev,” which is short and easy to pronounce, without diphthongs, digraphs or consonant blends.

Back to the jar filled with marbles.  That won’t last forever in a truly transcultural world.  The image should be a jar of especially thick paint.  Sure, you can still see the colors that go in, but sooner or later, everything will mix.  America is STILL the primary place where people emigrate to.  First the freely possible off-the-books immigration and the current press to reverse the off-the-books thing have  NOT changed the direction that many people want to move.  We will have more and more “strange” surnames moving to the U.S.  Oh, how about not “strange” but “sounds strange and is hard to pronounce for someone whose milk language is English. 

The answer?  Oh, yes, I have an answer, but it’s not an immediate fix-all.  It’s patience.  Native English speakers, try to pronounce someone’s name as they pronounce it.  If it’s tough, ask them.  Americans are largely polite people.  “XI Jinpeng” knows that an English mouth has a rough time wrapping itself around his name, probably as much as a Chinese mouth has trouble pronouncing Donald Trump or  Marco Rubio. 

We will have more names to learn how to pronounce.  Do it patiently. But do it.

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[1] It’s late.  I’m sitting up in bed.  I’m lazy.  Do your own math if it bothers you.

[2] And, again, am too lazy to look up.

[3] See above reverence to my being in bed and lazy.

[4] A grammatical note:  A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.  Unless you don’t have anything else to end it with.