Anthroponymy is the term for choosing names. Especially interesting to me are "reduplicated names": I know a Lewis Lewis. I wondered, "Of all the names in the world, they chose Lewis as his first name!" I know a Beverly Beverly.
I know three people named Jesse James (one pictured--LOL) Evans Evans, an American actress Fei Fei, an Asian actress Lisa Lisa, an American singer Sylvain Sylvain, an American guitarist Thomas Thomas, a science fiction writer Helle Helle, Danish author Wilson Wilson, American actor (the next-door neighbor, always behind the fence, on Home Improvement) My brother just interjected, "How about Sirhan Sirhan?" Some examples of WTH were the parents thinking?: DWARD FARQUAHR was Dody Goodman's dance teacher in Columbus, OH and she would talk about him with Jack Paar on The Tonight Show. Dick Sweat was a NH congressman Ron Tugnutt (former NHL player)
Andy Friese (another race car driver)
Dick Trickle, NASCAR driver (pictured) Candace was a very popular name some forty years ago: Gerald's niece's name is Penelope Candace--they wanted to call her Penny Candy! (WHY do people name a child and then say, "We named him/her that so we can call him/her...": some NICKNAME? Why don't they just name the child the name they are going to call them?) My sister-in-law had a cousin whose last name was BARR; she ALMOST named her daughter Candace; fortunately, my sister-in-law advised her that the child would inevitably be nicknamed by somebody as Candy and she would live as Candy Barr; fortunately, she chose another name.
Scarlet Ann Gray: to my knowledge, she was featured in the The Columbus Dispatch three different times:
1. When she was born--her father claimed to be the world's biggest Ohio State University fan.
2. When she started college--at THE Ohio State University.
3. When she married--I bet she was glad to change her name.
In yesterday's blog, I wrote about the death of Andrew Goodman, who along with Michael Schwerner and James Chaney, was murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi on June 21, 1964.
My Mantelpiece A Memoir Of Survival And Social Justice was written by Dr. Carolyn Goodman, the mother of Andy Goodman. The book is a wrenching story of dealing with the murder of her son and the continuing fight for social justice. With her, I still grieve for "what might have been" and mourn the loss of those heroes of the struggle for civil rights.
After Andy's death, Dr. Goodman and Andy's father Robert Goodman, created The
Andrew Goodman Foundation. To quote from the book: "The Foundation was created to carry on the spirit and purpose of Andy's life, with the vision that every person will take action to create a peaceful, just, and sustainable world. The Foundation empowers the next generation to initiate and sustain social action, enabling leaders and their communities to flourish by operating and investing in programs that advance civic engagement and intergenerational coalitions."
For more information, please visit www.AndrewGoodman.org
ANDREW GOODMAN November 23, 1943--June 21, 1964 "HE TRAVELED A SHORT WHILE TOWARDS THE SUN AND LEFT THE VIVID AIR SIGNED WITH HIS HONOR"--from Andrew Goodman's tombstone (paraphrasing a quote from Stephen Spender's poem, I Think Of Those Who Are Truly Great)
Andrew Goodman (photo above) was born on November 23, 1943, in New York City and was reared on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the second of three sons of Robert and Carolyn Goodman and brother to David and Jonathan. The Goodmans were an intellectual family committed to progressive activism and social justice. They believed in "doing well by doing good"; Andy was an activist from the age of fifteen; he graduated from the progressive Walden School which was known for its anti-authoritarian approach to learning. While a sophomore at Walden, Goodman traveled to Washington D.C., to participate in the "Youth March For Integrated Schools" and as a senior, he and a friend visited a depressed coal mining region in West Virginia to prepare a report on poverty in the United States. He interviewed Jackie Robinson, one of his heroes.
Goodman attended the Honors Program at University of Wisconsin--Madison, for a semester but withdrew after falling ill with pneumonia. He transferred to Queens College, New York City, partly because of its strong drama department. With his brief experience as an off-Broadway actor, he originally planned to study drama, but switched to anthropology.
In April, 1964, he applied for and was accepted into the Mississippi Summer Project. He volunteered, along with Michael Schwerner, to work as part of "Freedom Summer", a CORE (Congress Of Racial Equality) project to register blacks to vote in Mississippi. Having protested U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's presence at that year's World's Fair, Goodman then left for training at the Western College For Women (now part of Miami University) in Oxford, OH. In June, Schwerner and Goodman were sent to Mississippi to begin registering blacks to vote.
On the night of June 20, 1964, the two reached Meridian, Mississippi, where Schwerner (photo left) was designated to be the head of the field office. There they joined with James Earl Chaney, a black man who was also a civil rights activist. On the morning of June 21, 1964, the three set out for Philadelphia, Mississippi, in Neshoba County, where they were to investigate the recent burning of a local black church, the Mount Zion Methodist Church, which had been designated as a site for the Freedom School for education and voter registration.
The three were initially arrested by Deputy Cecil Price for allegedly driving 35 miles over the 30-mile-per-hour speed limit. The three were taken to the jail in Neshoba County where Chaney (photo left) was booked for speeding, while Goodman and Schwerner were booked "for investigation".
After Chaney was fined $20, the three men were released and told to leave the county. Price followed them on State Route 19 to the county line, then turned around at approximately 10:30 p.m. On their way back to Meridian, they were stopped by two carloads of KKK members on a remote rural road. The men approached their car and then shot and killed Schwerner, followed by Goodman, and finally Chaney.
Eventually the Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff and conspirators were convicted by Federal prosecutors of civil rights violations but were never convicted of murder. The case formed the basis of a made-for-television movie Attack On Terror: the FBI vs. The Ku Klux Klan" and the feature film Mississippi Burning.
On September 14, 2004, the Mississippi State Attorney General Jim Hood announced that he was gathering evidence for a charge of murder and intended to take the case to a Grand Jury. On January 7, 2005, Edgar Ray Killen was arrested and later found guilty of three counts of manslaughter--not murder--on June 21, 2005, exactly 41 years to the day after the murders. Killen, then age 80, was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
Andy's parents, Robert and Carolyn Goodman, set up the Andrew Goodman Foundation in 1966. The mission of the Foundation is "to recognize, encourage and inspire creative and effective local and individual action in support of civil rights, human dignity and social justice". Visit www.andrewgoodman.org
Goodman Mountain, a 2,176 foot peak in the Adirondack Mountain town of Tupper Lake, NY, where Andy Goodman and his family spent many of their summers, is named in Andy Goodman's memory.
New York City named "Freedom Place" a four-block stretch in Manhattan's Upper West Side, in honor of Goodman. A plaque on 70th and West End Avenues tells his story.
Queens College has a memorial to honor Andy Goodman. The day of his murder is acknowledged each year on campus and the clock tower of the campus library is dedicated to Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner.
The Walden School, at 88th Street and Central Park West, named its middle and upper school building in honor of Goodman's memory. The Trevor Day School now occupies the building and has maintained their building's name as the Andrew Goodman Building.
An outdoor memorial theater exists at Miami University in Oxford, OH, dedicated to the Freedom Summer alums. Miami University's now defunct Western College for Women, also included historical lectures about Freedom Summer.
Those Three Are On My Mind was written by Pete Seeger to commemorate the three victims.
The Simon and Garfunkel song, He Was My Brother was dedicated to Goodman. Paul Simon had been a classmate of Goodman at Queens College.
To hear He Was My Brother, click on the arrow below.
Andy lives forever in the hearts of his family and friends.
Gerald and I saw a perfect rainbow tonight, but unfortunately he did not have his camera with him and missed the opportunity to capture the exquisite image. By the time we arrived home, the rainbow had vanished. I now wish I had listened to the salesman when I purchased the new cell phone--a so-called "smart phone"-- as he was explaining about the camera application. I don't do well taking pictures so I wasn't interested in learning how to use the camera function. Now I wish I had! At home I told my brother about seeing that perfect rainbow and I compared it to the thrill of seeing seadog formations. I have seen a seadog formation only twice. Each time it occurred, it was during foggy and warm mornings when I saw the faint rainbow-like formations; the sunlight reflects in the fog droplets and it produces a ghostly, whitish rainbow.
Seadog formations are also called fogbows, mistbows, and white rainbows.
When I said "seadog formation", my brother asked, "You mean they have those old Navy guys marching?"
We had a large celebration for our 25th anniversary. My brother Ken shouted, "Toast! Toast!" Gerald lifted up a champagne glass filled with Coca-Cola to offer a toast and he said: "I married her for her sense of humor, but then I found out the joke was on me." I responded, "You didn't have the nerve to say that on our wedding day." He answered, "I was scared to death on our wedding day."
His reason for toasting with the champagne glass filled with Coca Cola was because on our honeymoon, we were having dinner at a very nice restaurant and I glanced at another table and saw a couple toasting each other with champagne. I said, "Awwwww, that's so
romantic." My new husband asked, "Sweetheart, would you like some champagne?" Wistfully, I said, "No, I just want to be toasted!" My husband summoned the waiter, and I swear he actually said, "Garcon!" He asked the waiter for two champagne glasses and that he wanted them empty. When the waiter brought the glasses, Gerald emptied our Coca-Cola into the glasses and lifted his glass and said, "Here's looking at you, kid." (OK, he had to borrow from Bogie on that one!) Happy 46th Anniversary!
Shortly after becoming the first female Manufacturing Supervisor at Mead, there was an opening for a Corrugator Supervisor. Nearly all promotions were made from in-house applicants, but this time the Company hired someone from another Company. Sam, the new Supervisor, quickly demonstrated his ability and turned around the Department in a short amount of time. He exuded self-confidence and strode through the plant with quite a self-assured swagger. In addition to that, he was an attractive man.
I seldom had any interaction with Sam, because he spent his breaks in his section. I did not go out to the local "watering holes" after work as most of the other Supervisors did, and neither did Sam. The Corrugator Department finished a half-hour before the other departments and Sam was always long-gone by the time the other Department Supervisors gathered in the mutual office to finish paperwork. The only time that Sam and I would be together was during the monthly inventory, because, as the "newbies", we were thrown together. Sam was all-business, never made small-talk, and was in no way flirtatious. On Inventory Day, the other guys would go out at lunch and have drinks, but Sam said he just wanted to get done as quickly as possible, as did I. Sam lived in Chillicothe.
Within a few weeks of his arrival, the other supervisors began making "catty" remarks about Sam and, I am ashamed of myself NOW, because I did not speak up to defend him. Being the only female and wanting to be accepted by my colleagues was my rationale, but it surely wasn't the person I should have been. It was obvious that all the others were jealous of Sam and I think it was mostly because he was an outsider who had easily proved that he was superior to them and that he neither needed--nor wanted--their approval. However, their real fear was that they saw him as promotable, which was not a fear of mine. Oh, that green-eyed monster! Soon, the nasty comments turned into rumors about Sam. I listened to the rumors, and I admit I enjoyed some of the salacious stories, but I did not repeat them. I berated myself about the sins of commission versus the sins of omission but did not leap to Sam's defense.
One time after Inventory we were all told to meet in the conference room and we all knew it was to be a "Come To Jesus" moment! The Manufacturing Manager started to speak about the vile rumors being circulated throughout the plant on all shifts and it had come to his attention that members of management were involved in spreading the rumors. Several of the Supervisors were looking at their feet and others making sidelong glances at others and everyone was definitely uncomfortable as the boss said that if he found out who was spreading such tales they would be terminated. He ended his furious speech by asking if there were any comments or questions. Only Sam raised his hand. The Manager, along with all assembled, looked stunned because every person in that room knew he'd been talking about Sam. Sam said that he had only been with the Company a short time, but in that time he'd never heard anything bad said about anybody and that the stories must be coming from the hourly workers because he knew it couldn't be coming from management people!
His magnanimity was so amazing that, at that moment, I vowed to myself that in the future, I would contradict any negative thing ever said about Sam.
Months later, the Blizzard struck and Gerald came in the Scout to rescue me at work. Sam could not get home to Chillicothe and he asked Gerald to take him to a motel. I said, "We have an extra room; you can come home with us and you can probably wear some of Gerald's clothes or I can wash yours!" I was surprised that Sam accepted. He was with us for three days and the Sheriff's Department called to ask if Gerald was the Raypole with a 4-Wheel Drive vehicle because they wanted him to volunteer to help. I told them he was already out helping my brother who was in the National Guard. Sam was out with Gerald helping. Every time they would return home Sam would ask to use the phone to call his wife and kids and I could hear him talking to them. In those three days I really got to know Sam and learned what a wonderful family man he was. My mother, who we characterized as NOT liking anybody, said, "I like THAT guy!"
The last evening he was there, we were alone, sitting around the fireplace and I asked, "Sam, you remember when we had the meeting about the rumors about a Supervisor?" He smiled and responded, "Yeah, why?" I asked, "Did you know Joe was talking about you?" He laughed and said, "Of course I did!" I asked, "Then why did you say those nice things?" He answered, "I wanted them to feel even WORSE than they already did!" Although I had never felt complicit, I told him I had always felt guilty. He said, "Oh, Hell, I knew you were fighting your own battles; if they weren't beating up on me, it was you!"
He said, "All I want is to come to work, do a good job and go home and be with my family." I said, "Then there's a pair of us--don't tell, they'd banish us you know." He looked quizzical and I said, "It's a poem by Emily Dickinson." He said, "You know, I'm not educated and I keep to myself because I don't want others to know that." I said, "But everyone is envious of your self-confidence and ability." He said, "That's why I keep to myself because ability is all that I have and I don't need others to know that I'm not educated like they are!" I told him the quote: "Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." He said, "That's good, who said it?" I said, "It's been attributed to Abe Lincoln, George Eliot, and Mark Twain in different forms." He said, "Write it down for me."
I said, "Sam, they are all scared of you because they know that you are superior to them!" I continued, "You haven't even been here a year and they're all scared that if somebody retires, you'll get the promotion!" He said, "You're kidding; I'll never get off a Corrugator!" I said, "You should start college; the Company pays 75% tuition!" He said, "I've got four kids and a wife." I said, "Well, you can take a few hours at a time. You got your crew off overtime; you should have plenty of time now!"
After the Blizzard, when we would be doing Inventory, we would talk a great deal and he would always ask for a new quote. I'd told him about a guy at The New York Times who was called "Quote Boy" and Sam began calling me "Quote Girl". The others would see us chatting and they would oftentimes ask me questions about Sam but I always kept his confidence. I would always answer, "Ask Sam if you want to know something about him." I also noticed the coolness toward me after I quit being a "participant" against Sam.
Sam never went to college and he eventually left the Company for the same kind of job with another Company making much more money. We exchanged Christmas cards for a few years and then I lost contact. I clicked on Facebook recently and found his wife and learned of his death. She said, "Sam always called you Quote Girl; he kept a list of your quotes." I was glad it was a telephone conversation as I would have been embarrassed for her to see the tears in my eyes and the lump in my throat.
He is still one of the people I have most admired in my work life. I wish I had told him, but I think he knew. For my friend Sam from his Quote Girl
I'M NOBODY! WHO ARE YOU? By Emily Dickinson
I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell! They'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!
I know three people named Jesse James (one pictured--LOL)
Dick Trickle, NASCAR driver (pictured)
