Food for Thought

We had breakfast today at the same place we always have breakfast on Sunday. We go there because one of my ex-student's (sssh favorite students) is a wait person. No kidding, we get to go in and say, "the usual." Actually she says it, and we just nod. Her name is Stephene Davis. You'll hear about her some day, but that's not why I'm giving you her name. That is not a typo on her first name. That's how her parents branded her. Think twice before teasing her about it. She was the Oregon State High School Javelin champion.

I'm used to hearing " Huh?" when my full name is exposed. Reinert Paul Reinertson. "Were your parents mad at you or something?" That's when I get to dazzle the curious with my explanation of Nordic Patronymics, in which the male offspring merely adds son or sen to daddy's first name. So if Paul were my given name even though I was a Reinertson, my son's name would be Paulson. That really hit home when we visited the town in Norway that my grandfather immigrated from. We visited the cemetery there to discover that half the headstones were Reinertsons. A helpful town's person explained, " ya, a lot of people took that name." Everybody had to choose a surname in the early part of the 20th century because it was becoming impossible to trace ancestry the other way.

Well you know no matter how complicated your life gets, someone can top it. I have a friend named Kim Nguyen who is the managing editor of television website. When I started teaching I noticed I had a Kim Nguyen in one of my speech classes. "Oh, what fun," I'm thinking. "Kim is going to be in my class." Well it was another Kim Nguyen who happened to be reporting for a local daily. Just a little coincidence I'm thinking. Then one weekend night I'm watching the news on a local TV station and hear the reporter sign off, "Kim Nguyen." Actually, she spelled it differently, but it sounded the same. She was no relation to the other two, although they all knew each other. Well, still just a coincidence I'm thinking. Then I'm looking up the website for the network division an ex-student, Mindy MacInnes recently went to work for in New York. (we'll save the oddity of the  spelling of her name for a later time) Right next to Mindy's name is guess who? Yep, there she was again, Kim Nguyen.

You would think, "how weird!" But I had already explored this phenomenon with the original Kim. She mumbled something like all the Nguyens are called Kim. I don't really want to understand that. But I did just do a general search of the name. Guess what? Kim Nguyen can be male or female. And they are a diverse group.  You know  how most Buffys end up on NPR?  Well the Kim Nguyens are all over the place. Here's a partial list: attorney, phrenologist (someone who studies the bumbs on your head), catholic martyr,  cryptographer, artist,  2nd place winner of the women's Alabama state table tennis championship, and somebody single looking for a date from my Alma Mater, CSULB. Problem? The dating ad doesn't mention the lonely Kim's chromosome arrangement.  I like the Russian solution to that. Females are ovas, males are offs. Kim Nguyenoff?

All of a sudden Stephene seems a pretty sensible spelling. " I'll have the usual."