By John W. Vander Velden
For most of my life I was not in the habit of naming things.
Oh I named pets, a tom cat named Gray Gray spent most of his life on our
farm in the sixties. Dad named the farm dogs, Ike, a boxer that was tougher
than nails, yet terrified of thunder. A mutt of a snow dog, whose soft fur
seemed a foot thick, was named King. The fur wasn’t that thick, but King loved
the cold. He would lay all day on top of the snow bank in a raging blizzard. An
incredible beast. We’ve had cats named Moose, Baby, Oliver, and so many others
that we attached names to.
But in general, I did not name objects.
Jackie on the other hand named some of her automobiles.
She called my blue 86 Dodge Aries, Beasty. To be honest it was a good
car, but the least animal like of anything I owned. But the time came when we
felt she needed 4-wheel-drive. Winter in Marshall County usually means snow,
and she was expected to make it to work on time no matter what. That was when
we purchased a small white Jeep. Now that vehicle, she decided, deserved a
name. It only took a couple of weeks to hang the moniker Pearl on her
Renegade.
Time came when I needed a different vehicle, and as
luck would have it, two years after adopting Pearl, we added a younger
sibling that looked just like her. Now I was faced with naming the second white
Renegade. Hmmmm. It took a few weeks, I toyed with names that sounded Italian.
After all our Renegades were imported from there. Finally I settled on Benny
Italian or not.
Perhaps that opened the floodgates for I have named
other objects since the summer of 2019. The most recent are the tools that help
me with my mobility, which are the real subjects of this post.
It began in late February, when a cane became a needed
accessory. I had taken one of dad’s metal canes as my own. But the thing
betrayed me. I named that piece of Aluminum, Judas, for it tripped me in
the dentist’s office. The result was an ambulance ride, seven stitches above
the right eyebrow, a broken finger, and four weeks of Physical Therapy for my
pinky finger. Hence the name Judas.
A pair of surgeries in April and May changed things,
and my bionic knees demanded something stronger and more trustworthy than Judas.
A dear friend of mine loaned me a walker, which I promptly named Jethro.
If you’re familiar with the CBS Monday night lineup, you might understand the
name choice. You see my Jethro was quiet and dependable.
Jethro was my companion until
just before Independence Day when I finally was allowed to move to a cane. Jethro
was no Judas, he never let me down, no matter how awkward it was to get
around. The new cane went unnamed for several weeks. It seemed to me the device
had a similar personality to Jethro, but I thought calling it Jethro
II, was not acceptable. I finally named my new black cane, LeRoy.
Fact is me and LeRoy have gotten around. Gone
shopping in Plymouth, took a trip to Shipshewana, Indiana, but the outing most
common was to Physical Therapy.
They have not given me permission to set my dear metal
friend aside. I had hoped to be allowed to wander on only two legs by month’s
end, but alas it does not seem to be the expected situation. It seems that I
will be needing to keep LeRoy close at hand for the next several weeks.
It’s a good thing I gave the cane a name…
(630 Words) 8-23-2024
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