Their Entitlement To America, Part Four

“Depression, War & The Pope”

So, by the time of the Great Depression, the neighborhood consisted of many people of German heritage, but with far fewer actual German immigrants. Most of the remaining German immigrants were, by then, all getting on in years. I do remember a friend of mine, a child of German immigrants, * who was born in America, I’d say around 1912, and he told me that on his first day of school, the administrators sent him home with instructions to “teach this boy some English.” This guy later became a very successful businessman, and when I came to know him fairly well, circa 1975, I needed “to teach this guy some German,” as he had forgotten most of it. His success led to his leaving the neighborhood for a nice new house and a fancy car, but he never forgot where he came from, the south side of town, and he never looked down on any of the people still living there. He may have forgotten most of the language, but he never forgot his German beer drinking habits, and he frequented the neighborhood to “quench his thirst” right up until cancer prevented him from getting around, eventually permanently so.

And there was the southern portion of the neighborhood with a mainly Polish population, but with some Ukrainian folks. Of course, even in this area, “Polish Town,” a declining percentage of the people were actual immigrants, as many of their kids were American born, although the children grew up bilingual.

By 1930, there were still a good many of those professional type folks, I mentioned in an earlier part, living in the neighborhood. Keep in mind the difference in the money values from those days compared to now. So if someone had a worth of twenty or thirty thousand dollars, that was a hell of a lot of money in those times, equivalent to several hundred thousand of today’s dollars. Of course so many of the people in the neighborhood were dependent upon the mills in the area, and it had to be very difficult for them during the Depression, when the mills were closed for extensive periods of time. This in turn meant less money for the local merchants, as people didn’t have any money to spend. I certainly believe that it was during this era that the sense of economic populism exploded in the neighborhood. Politically, the neighborhood became very Democratic, but still contained a good many Republicans, my maternal grandfather being a Republican committeeman there for many years. My grandmother was also a Republican, but she voted for Franklin Roosevelt at least once, in 1936; something she never told my grandfather, but only divulged later in her life, and after his death.

So many of the people in the neighborhood were affected by World War Two, as people were in every neighborhood, all over the country, and in much of the world. My dad went into the Army and was sent to the Pacific. His two brothers also served in the war, one in the Merchant Marine, and the other in the Navy. My dad was injured by the concussion from a Japanese artillery shell on the island of Saipan and he had to be sent back to Hawaii. He received a partial disability for the rest of his life. His one brother had his ship sunk by the Japanese, and he couldn’t swim, but he somehow survived.

When I was a kid in the 1950s and 1960s, some of the other kids’ fathers who had served in Europe, brought out their “souvenirs” from Germany; like German helmets, German daggers, a German pistol, and even a Nazi armband and medals. We were all fascinated by these things, especially what we considered “the neat German helmets,” with their odd shape. ** In those days, kids that we were, we had no concept of what these “souvenirs” had originally stood for, just a few short years before, and Hitler was just a funny looking guy with a toothbrush mustache to us.

The war brought full employment, although at a terrible cost, and when it ended, after some time of adjustment, the economy picked up again. The Depression had given rise to many new protections for workers, and the mills and plants hummed along, making various metal products for an increasingly prosperous American public. (That’s what happens when the money gets spread up and down the economic ladder, and it isn’t concentrated primarily at the top. Of course back then, our leaders didn’t spend much of their time concerned with the “plight of billionaires,” and how those “poor” billionaires could make more money off of money.)

Then came 1960. John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic and Irish-American, was elected President of the United States. This was a first. To many of those Americans who tried desperately to prove that they were somehow connected to Plymouth Rock, this was just too much. I remember hearing many a Protestant adult say, “Now we’re going to be run by the Pope!” Or even worse, “Now we’ve got a ‘fish eater’ running the country!” So many people love to spout slogans like, “America is a land of opportunity for everyone,” but that slogan had never really been intended for “certain groups,” like Catholics. It’s amazing how far we’ve come, since back in those days, religion was a very polarizing subject. And in my neighborhood, which was very much split between Protestants and Catholics (and some Ukrainian Catholics), religion was one hot subject that could cause tempers to flare and fists to fly. In the American South, the Ku Klux Klan was not just a group that hated people by race, but also by religion, and Catholics were prime targets. I’m sure such sentiments still linger in some people, but for the most part, the country has moved past religion being so divisive, and we’re a better country for it. It takes time, but ever so gradually Americans overcome the nonsense of bigotry. (A “Word History” is below the notes)

* His parents were not from Germany, but from the German community in what became a part of Yugoslavia, when it was established after World War One. These Germans were collectively called “Donauschwaben” (Danube Swabians), as most of them migrated to that area along and near the Danube (German: Donau) River from Swabia, the general area around Stuttgart, the headquarters of the Mercedes-Benz auto company.

** Of course we no longer consider those helmets “odd,” as our own troops have had similar shaped helmets for a while now, copied from the German example.

“Word History:”
Else-This word goes back to the Indo European base "al," which had the notion of "other," and is also the source of "alias;" that is, "other name." The Germanic offshoot was "aljo," had a genitive adverbial form "aljaz," which also had the meaning of "other, different." This gave Old English "elles," with the same meaning. From what I gather, the forms of the word in the other Germanic languages have died out, although I did see a reference to Swedish "eljest," and Dutch had "els" a few hundred years ago.

Will The Dems Finally Act?

Regular readers know that I've been preaching here for quite some time about how the country has been taken over by the wealthy business interests in the country. There are many important issues in this country, war and peace certainly being one, but in my opinion, in the end, what will destroy the country is how we deal with the economy and the standard of living for all Americans, not just the rich. The philosophy that spawned the take over by the "interests" was put in place just shy of thirty years ago. In the early Reagan years, many Americans could not have foreseen how the mighty would truly become THE mighty in the country within just a couple of decades. We have two major political parties to help balance things out in how the country operates. During much of the last thirty years many Democrats in Congress supported a lot of conservative policies. I said "many Democrats," but certainly not all. Some of those Dems were so conservative, that they switched parties and became Republicans. Additionally, during his two terms, President Clinton, a Democrat, also signed into law a number of policies that were heavily supported by conservatives in the country, including the repeal of some significant regulation of the banking industry, proposed mainly by then Senator Phil Gramm, Republican of Texas.* So, I'm not just picking on Republicans, but it was their favored philosophy that prevailed for almost thirty years, and it was that philosophy that helped put the country into the predicament it is now in economically.** In essence, however, WE are to blame.

We watched oil and gasoline prices spiral to heights never believed possible. We watched as higher energy prices drove the price of just about everything higher. We watched as the price of many other food products soared, because of "supposed scarcity." We watched the country's wealth dissipate in trade imbalances that boggled the mind. We watched as middle class Americans saw their collective incomes shrink. We watched as Wall Streeters and other wealthy Americans "cleaned up" on high prices for everything, transferring money from OUR pockets into THEIR bank accounts. We watched as Wall Streeters and other wealthy Americans used that money to drive prices even higher, thus perpetuating the transfer of wealth from low and middle income Americans to the very wealthy. We watched as these same greed mongers helped (unwittingly, I'm NOT saying this was a conspiracy) foreign nations, some of them openly hostile to America, reap the benefits of higher oil prices, "fueled," if you'll pardon the expression, by the obsessive greed of our own greediest people. We watched as home prices surged to absurd levels, driven higher by mortgages granted to anyone who had a heartbeat, and maybe even to some who didn't. We watched as people who hated the idea of government, be put in charge of the government! Then these same imbeciles charged that the government doesn't work right! If you ever wanted to know what the Wild West was like, this stuff was pretty much comparable; that is, no law and order, except for the wealthy, who were a law unto themselves.

Now we've had a new President since late January. We've had Democrats in control of the House of Representatives. We've had Democrats in charge of the U.S. Senate. So what's been done to change all of the absolute nonsense that had been going on? Ah...NOTHING! Well, I guess there is going to be a policy to cut back on Wall Street bonuses announced some time today, supposedly for one year, but that is insufficient for the magnitude of the problem. The whole system was taken over by wealthy interests. Corporate board members have been as cozy as cucumbers on a vine with CEOs and other corporate officers. These folks approved all of these bonuses and exorbitant salaries. The average shareholder is just like dust on the floor.

We have the greedy back to driving oil and gas higher. Let me tell you, how much do you want to bet that many a Wall Street business is behind that? They'll destroy the country, because they are so obsessed by greed and ego trips that they don't even see how they hurt the country by taking money from the pockets of average Americans AND helping transfer more of our wealth overseas to oil producing countries. I know many people don't agree with me on this at this time, but you watch, if nothing is done, many Americans will be screaming for Uncle Sam to nationalize the oil industry in this country, just to get a handle on the abuses that have gone on. Survival will outweigh all this "socialist" malarkey shouted by some people who don't even see their own self interest. And they are urged on by people who fully understand their own self interest. Can you guess who they are? All of the negative ads appearing on your television screen didn't get there by magic. They were funded by someone. Any attempts to change the system that now favors the "big boys," will face well funded opposition, and you can put that in a Wall Street bank account. (A "Word History" is below the notes)

* Gramm was one of those former Democrats who changed parties.

** Very concisely, but not all inclusive, that philosophy entailed big tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans, free trade policies with countries whose workers earned only a fraction of what American workers made, thus putting our own workers at a serious disadvantage, and the idea of "the best regulation is no regulation." That last notion was in place as the conditions mounted that would cause the economy to melt before the very eyes of those who opposed regulation so much, like Christopher Cox, George W. Bush's head of the Security & Exchange Commission, better known by its initials, SEC, but he was not alone!

WORD HISTORY:
Now-This very common word goes back to Indo European "nu," and meant "at the present time." This gave many of the Indo European dialects (later separate languages) a form of the word, as Sanskrit, an ancient relative of English, had "nu," and Latin had "nunc," and Greek had/has "nun/nyn/nu" (I found three different versions). The Germanic languages also kept a form of the word, and this gave Old English "nu." The other Germanic languages also still have forms: German has "nun," Dutch has "nu/nou," Norwegian has "na," Danish has "nu/na," and Swedish has "nu."

Their Entitlement To America, Part Three

Edited ever so slightly November 17, 2016, but actually only to add a small bit of information. 

Their Entitlement To America, Part Three”
“Guilt By Association Brings More Change”

Along came “The Great War,” later termed “World War One,” after an even greater war followed in two decades. I remember long ago talking with folks in the neighborhood who lived through that era; almost all either had German-sounding family names, or their mother’s side of the family did. There was even a bank in the neighborhood with “German” in the name, but I just can’t recall the proper title. There was also “Beethovian Hall” not far up the street from the “German” bank; at least, I think that was the proper name, and it was not only named after the famous German composer, it was the home of what I believe was called “The Beethoven Music Society.” At least a couple of German Protestant churches had “German” in their names, too. The butcher shops, even later when I was a kid, all had various types of German meats: sausages of all shapes and sizes in natural casings, head cheese, Schweitzer cheese*, Limburger cheese, Berliner ham**, Braunschweiger, blood sausage, Mettwurst, and more that I can’t even recall at this moment (the German for what we Americans generally call, "lunch meat," or "cold cuts," is "Aufschnitt," a singular noun, never used in the plural, no matter how many different meats a person is talking about. Don't ask me, that's what they do). Even the little “mom & pop” grocery stores that were all over the place, each had many of these German products for sale in their meat cases. ***

When I was little, my dad worked his job and my mother worked a seasonal job for a toy manufacturer. Those of you old enough may well remember the name of that toy manufacturer, “Marx.” (Ah oh! The right wing will say it was a communist toy commune!) The company featured ads on many of the Saturday morning cartoon shows in those days. At some point, I believe another toy company bought them up, and to my knowledge, the brand name no longer exists. Of course, it could exist in China, since that’s where we seem to get our toys made anymore, lead and all! Hmm, I don’t remember many in the right wing throwing a fit over trade deals with China, except Pat Buchanan. Do you suppose it has anything to do with their business allies who couldn’t wait for such trade? Anyway, my older brother was in school and I was frequently with my maternal grandparents. I so fondly remember my grandmother making Limburger cheese sandwiches with lots of onion on them. And of course, Grandpap would bring home a quart of beer to wash down the smelly cheese, made even smellier by the onion (then again, I’m not sure the onion could overcome the Limburger****). Unlike my older brother, who absolutely HATED Limburger cheese, and in fact refused to even stay in the same room with anyone who had a sandwich, I LOVED Limburger cheese, and still do! My grandmother would re-wrap the Limburger in the original packaging, put wax paper around it, then foil, then put it in an old, crockery-type, light blue butter dish, with a lid, and set it on the self of the refrigerator. That may seem like a lot of work for a piece of cheese, but trust me, she had to do it to keep the odor from penetrating anything or everything else in the refrigerator, not to mention what fine smell would escape when the refrigerator door was opened.

My grandparents loved all of the German meat products I mentioned above, and it was common for Grandma to pack some Mettwurst or Berliner ham for my grandfather to take to work for his lunch.

When America entered the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary, the neighborhood seems to have gone through a patriotic frenzy, from what I remember hearing from “the old timers.” The name of the “German” bank was changed to something less…ah…well…GERMAN! “Dutch Cake,” the name for a type of sweet cake, was changed to “Coffee Cake.” There were other changes away from the name “German,” or products whose name was associated with Germans, but time has left me unable to recall them. The word “German” was even dropped from the church names. Most of the “Germans” in the neighborhood were children or grandchildren of immigrants, but that didn’t much matter, German was German. (A “Word History” is below the notes)

* Schweitzer is German for “Swiss,” and that was the ONLY term used for it in my neighborhood. I swear I was well into my teens before I ever heard anyone call Schweitzer cheese, “Swiss cheese,” and then I had to ask what they meant.

** I’ve got to be honest, that may have been our local name for this particular type of ham, because I could not find any info on anything termed “Berliner ham” in more recent times. When I was a kid, all the grocery stores in the neighborhood had it, and it was pronounced German-style, like "bear-leaner."

*** I already mentioned the Polish food additions in the far south of the neighborhood in “Part Two.” The Germans and the Poles actually share some of the same meat products, like blood sausage, although to be quite honest, I don’t know if the Polish version is somewhat different from the German, because, as a kid, I didn’t like blood sausage, aka “Blutwurst;” may my German ancestors not turn over too many times in their graves! A fair portion of German areas in Europe border on Polish areas, and there’s no doubt food stuffs were swapped over the centuries. I intend to cover much on the German-Polish relationship when I do some German history in the near future.

**** In those times, Limburger was pretty popular in many parts of America, and it was made by several companies, if I remember right. Limburger aficionados insisted that the worse the smell, the better the cheese, and I agree! All I can say is, some of the cheese companies back then made some VERY good Limburger, because the smell was enough to make your hair stand on end! There were some beer establishments in the neighborhood that actually sold Limburger cheese sandwiches. Some of you may remember an old episode of “The Three Stooges,” where Curly occasionally goes wild, and can only be soothed by a piece of cheese (“because his father was a rat,” according to the Stooges). He always asks for a different type of cheese, and at the end of the story, he wants Limburger. Upon getting a piece of “well made” Limburger, the trio passes out from the smell! Unfortunately, I saw a clip on television that said only one American company now still makes Limburger. I’ve tried it, and it’s pretty tame stuff, but you have to let it sit in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks (unopened) to "strengthen."

WORD HISTORY:
Lox-This noun apparently traces back to some Indo European root for "fish," as several other Indo European languages have forms of the word, including Russian and Polish "losos," and Lithuanian "laszisza." "Apparently" at some point, many Indo European dialects applied it to a specific fish, salmon. Whether this was from some borrowing of that specific meaning from another related dialect, I could not find it. Old Germanic had "lakhs," and Old English had "leax" (I could not find out if a form of this word died out). Yiddish, another Germanic language developed long ago by Jews to communicate throughout various parts of Europe, brought the spelling "lox" to America, and that's why we enjoy "lox and bagels." A form of the word is also still common in other Germanic languages, as German has "Lachs," pronounced pretty much like our word, and both Norwegian and Danish have "laks."

Siphoning Money From Our Gas Tanks

The country remains in what is now being called, "The Great Recession." The price of many things have fallen, largely in an orderly manner; that is, we've not had a panic driven deflation that has sent the economy spiraling into the abyss. Of course, those stalwarts of the "investment industry," better known to me as "the sit on their ass class," have chosen to continue to extract more money from the American economy through higher oil and gasoline prices.

Every dollar siphoned from our pockets into their bank accounts means less for the rest of us to spend on things that might actually help bring the economy back. I've heard it said several times on CNBC* in the past, that for every penny gasoline goes up on an annual basis, it costs American consumers one billion dollars.** I've not heard anyone challenge that info, so I'll take it that it is pretty accurate. The best thing Americans can get out of the greedy bastards is that "it is cheaper than last year." I've been saying for a long, long time here that these greedy egomaniacs will destroy the country, and much of the wreckage is already lying around us. The "investor class" has already helped bring the country to its knees. Do they stop? Hell no! Mo' money! Mo' money! Mo' money!

Now that NASA has bombed the moon to see if there is water there, what we really need for the space agency to do is, find out if there is money either on the moon or on some other planet. If so, they'll be able to sell tickets to our greediest citizens to go there, because there isn't enough money for them on THIS planet! (A "Word History" is below the notes)

* CNBC is a cable business channel owned by NBC Universal.
** Remember, this is on an annual basis.

WORD HISTORY:
Siphon-This word, originally just a noun, traces back to Greek "siphon," which meant "tube or pipe." Greek is an Indo European language related to English, but further down the "family tree," although many words, or root words in English, and indeed in many of the Indo European languages, have come from Greek, albeit at times via Latin, or a Latin based language. From what I can find, linguists haven't been able to trace "siphon" back to some Indo European, or other, base, up to this point in time. Latin picked up the word from Greek as "sipho," as the singular form, with a long "i" sound and a long "o" sound. Latin is another Indo European language, likewise related to English further down the "family tree." French, a Latin based language, continued with "siphon," and English seemingly acquired the word from French at some point, perhaps in the 1500s or most definitely by the 1600s. During the mid 1800s, a verb form seems to have emerged from the noun, with the meaning "drawing in or expelling liquid through a tube" (often used in reference to some sea creatures with such tubes), but apparently it wasn't until World War Two that the idea of "diverting a liquid (gasoline) from one container (gas tank) to another container (a gas can) by way of a tube," developed.

Their Entitlement To America, Part Two

“Changes In The Neighborhood, The Imaginary Line”

As my former neighborhood moved toward 1900, there were some changes in the ethnic origins of immigrants moving into the area. There were still some Germans coming, although by this time, some were coming from the eastern European parts of the German-speaking world, as opposed to the earlier German immigrants, who tended to come more from the western European sections of Germandom.* A large part of the new immigrants came from Poland. At that point in time, there was not actually a country of Poland, but rather only the geographical term. Much of Poland, including Warsaw, was then a part of the Russian Empire. Germany controlled a part of western Poland, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire controlled a smaller part of southwestern Poland.

These newly arrived Polish immigrants began to settle in the far southern blocks of the area, gradually supplanting the former occupants, many of them people of German background, although remnants of former German inhabitants remained for many, many years thereafter, as, for instance, the ice plant** still bore the family name of it’s German founders, and their descendants still owned it at that time. Around the time of World War One, and then after that war, more Polish immigrants came, also settling in the same general area, but also expanding somewhat beyond the initial blocks in what came to be called “Polish Town,” or more commonly, the derogatory term used for Polish folks, “Pollock Town.” (Remember Archie Bunker calling his son-in-law, Mike, a “Pollack?”) Many of these immigrants went to work in factories, where neither a lack of education nor English language skills were a notable hindrance. Their American-born children lived through the Depression and helped win World War Two, where some of them died fighting for this country. They were Americans, not just Polish-Americans.

A Catholic church was established in that particular part of the neighborhood for what became a Polish majority there. And if you wanted genuine “Kielbasa,” this part of town was the place to go, as one of the shops made their own. At holiday time, you had to place your order well in advance to be sure to get part of a fresh batch. In those days, this kind of stuff didn’t come frozen or vacuum packed in plastic with an expiration date of stamped on it. It was totally fresh and perishable. Interestingly, we actually lived along the main street in “Polish Town” briefly before moving a few blocks northward, just over the line that most people considered the boundary to “Polish Town,” but I was really, really little, and I only vaguely remember us living there.

Also around the World War One era, many immigrants came to the neighborhood from the western Ukraine. It is important to emphasize “western” Ukraine, because these people were not Eastern Orthodox in their religious beliefs, but rather “Ukrainian Catholic,” and they came from towns and villages that gradually transitioned into Poland. They too settled in the same general area as the Polish immigrants. The two languages were close (both are Slavic), and I recall many Polish and Ukrainian speakers noting that they could understand each other fairly well. A “Ukrainian Catholic” church was established, and in fact, I grew up just a block away from it. The church was actually just a block beyond the imaginary dividing line with “Polish Town;” that is, it was just outside of “Polish Town.” The house where I grew up was just four houses north of that line, while the slaughterhouse and meat packing company established by German immigrants (and still owned at that time by their family members) was just on the “Polish Town” side of the street. One street over, and also just on the “Polish Town” side, was a butcher shop, also established by German immigrants, and owned by their descendants.

Just because most people thought of this one street as dividing “Polish Town” from the rest of the neighborhood didn’t mean that there was some sort of segregation. Some Polish and Ukrainian families had moved beyond that “line” and, believe it or not, they didn’t turn into pumpkins or any other such thing. Nor did any of us non-Polish or non-Ukrainian folks suddenly develop the desire to visit Warsaw, or join the Communist Party. In fact, the neighbors on either side of our house*** were Polish. The husband and wife to the north of us were both older folks, and spoke very little English. Their two kids, a son and a daughter, both adults by that time, had been born and raised in America and spoke English and Polish. Their daughter and her family lived just three houses north of us and she visited her parents daily. To the south of us, the husband and wife also spoke very little English, and I just can’t recall if they had kids or not. They certainly didn’t have any kids around my age, or I’m sure I’d remember that. Directly across the alleyway from them there was another Polish family, a husband and wife, older folks, and they too spoke virtually no English. The lady next to us would go out on her back porch and call to the neighbor across the alleyway, and the old lady would come out to her gate, and the two would chatter away for long periods of time. I guess what bothered us was, we couldn’t understand a damned thing they were saying! I still wonder if they were talking about us at times.

To be continued….

(A “Word History” is below the notes)

* Notice I’m not always using the term “Germany;” that’s because not all European Germans lived in Germany proper. I will soon be doing some articles about the Germans in history, and my take on why they became so belligerent in the first half of the 20th Century. If you are a somewhat younger person, let’s say under the age of 40 (and certainly under 30), you may well think of bratwurst, beer, and Oktoberfest when you hear the term “German” used. And to be quite honest, in the last couple of decades, that might well even be true for folks older than about 40, but in the somewhat more distant past, I’d venture that when Americans heard the word “German,” their thoughts were more of Hitler, World War Two, concentration camps, and perhaps the wall dividing Germany since the early 1960s, which also symbolized the division of Europe into pro-West and pro-Soviet spheres, and the possible clash that could erupt along that wall at almost any time.

** Ice plants were common back then, although there’s no question that the more modern types of refrigerators that were becoming available were putting a major dent in their business. Still, many businesses bought blocks of ice in bulk for storage of perishable items. This plant also sold bags of ice cubes, crushed ice, and blocks of “dry ice.” And just so you younger folks don’t think Americans didn’t know much about “technology” in those times, the ice plant had a type of “vending” system for individuals to buy ice. You selected the kind of ice you wanted, put coins into some slots (like on a washing machine in a laundry mat), pushed the coin holder in, and out came your ice through a chute below, either a block of certain weight, or bagged ice cubes or crushed ice, just as you had selected. As kids, we’d go to the ice plant on hot summer days and there were always chunks of ice, large and small, lying around on the dock where the plant shipped large quantities of ice blocks and dry ice to businesses. And it seemed that every kid developed that American sense of entrepreneurship, as we would get some money together, get a small wagon, go buy a block of ice, get an ice shaver, and some “Kool Aid” of various flavors, and go around the neighborhood selling snow cones, or “ice cones,” as was a common term back then. The customer had to supply his or her own glass and spoon. Hey, you can’t have everything for a nickel for a small or a dime for a large! Hmm, I wonder if some of these ruthless business people we have today tried hard to start rumors when they were kids that there was an ice shortage, or a “Kool Aid” shortage, just so they could reap more profit?

*** We were renters, and we lived in the downstairs of a double. When we first moved there, the owners lived upstairs, but the husband died a year or two later, and the landlady moved to another part of town, either with or near her daughter’s family. A Polish family, husband, wife and son, then moved into the upstairs. Both husband and wife were the American-born children of Polish immigrants and spoke English and Polish.

Word History:
Woe-This word, both an exclamation and a noun, seems to go back to some Indo European base, as Latin, Greek, Armenian, Welsh and other Indo European languages all have some form of the word, but I can not find that root word. It may have just been an exclamation type of word. Whatever the more distant origins, it also is present in the Germanic languages, and usually has the connotation of "pain, misery, suffering, either physical or emotional," as German has "Weh," (pronounced "vay") which means "pain." By the way, the German word for Christmas, "Weihnachten," has "Weih," which is another form of the word, means "Night of Pain," after the pain endured by Mary while in labor and giving birth. Icelandic, a North Germanic language has "vei," and one source has Dutch with "wee." In Old English it was "wa," with a long "a" sound.

Their Entitlement To America, Part One

"Their Entitlement To America," Part One, "The Mighty Ohio"

When I was a kid in the 1950s and 1960s, our part of town was something of a mixture of many people. Later, when I was in my 20s, I started research into our family tree, called genealogy, for those unaware. By looking over old records and talking to “old timers,” I learned some bits and pieces about the history of where I grew up. Even before the Civil War many German immigrants were settling in the area I would later call home. There were also a number of people of Scots-Irish descent,* many whose ancestors had come to America well before the Civil War era.

The neighborhood was a narrow band of streets and alleys squeezed into a valley between the Ohio River on the west and some low hills to the east (actually the lower part of the Appalachian Mountains). I don’t know, I’m not all that great at judging distance, but I can’t be far off in saying that from the riverbank of the Ohio to the hillside was only about a half mile or so, although, especially by the time I was running around as a kid, in certain areas, civilization had actually crept up the extreme lower part of the hillside, as homes had been built there, and they were all newer. Over time, a lot of people in the area opened or took over existing shops and other businesses in the area, and they lived there, too; after all, in those times, you just didn’t go out to your driveway or garage, hop in your car, and drive off to go open your business for the day. By the latter part of the 1800s, there were some very ornate homes in the area, and I suppose many of these shopkeepers had had them built. There was a major problem, however, and that was the Ohio River. It would flood many parts of the neighborhood, especially in early spring, when the ice and snow would melt and run off further up river. Back then there were no dams to try to control the water level of the river, and so folks had to either leave their homes, or take the chance of going to upper floors. Many home builders had tried to get around some of the flooding problem by building the main living quarters of their homes well above ground level. Of course, this meant some fairly long stairways were necessary to get into these houses.

Not all parts of our neighborhood were equal for the flooding, as the rise and fall of the land usually kept some from the muddy swirling waters of the Ohio River, unless it was a really bad flood, but we lived in one of the lowest lying areas. One time, I’ll guess in the early spring of 1956, my mother and I were still in the house as the waters filled the basement and surrounded the house. I don’t know why my mother and I were still there that day, but perhaps because the news reported that the river was expected to crest soon, but then that didn’t happen. When floods were expected, my dad and others in the neighborhood would park their cars on higher ground a few blocks away near the hillside, where the street was fairly wide and bounded by a junkyard on one side and the hillside on the other, although part of the hillside there was occupied by an electrical “park.” I don’t know the proper word for them, but all of you know about them. They have lots of large metal towers with wires and transformers, and the unceasing “buzzing” sounds like a bunch of beehives are there. My dad always owned a Buick back in those days. It’s been so long ago, I can’t remember everything, but my dad may well have arranged for someone with a boat to pick him up and take him to dry land that morning, and he then walked to his car and went to work. My older brother…hmm, where the hell did he go? He wasn’t there, I know that. The deserter! He may have gone to my maternal grandparents’ house, which tended to remain out of the flooding. The house was absolutely freezing, as the furnace was in the basement and it always flooded there (see further below about the heating.) My dad hired a guy with a rowboat and they came and got us out.

When I was a kid, most people in the neighborhood heated their homes with large coal burning furnaces, although some homes (and businesses) still had the old potbelly stove within the living quarters to keep them warm through bitter cold winter weather. This situation also posed a problem (seems there’s always some darned problem, no matter what we humans do), as once the fire burned down, someone had to go and throw some coal into the stove, or worse, if you had a coal furnace, someone had to go clear to the basement to shovel in some coal. And of course, you had better have had the coal truck stop by recently to keep you supplied with the solid black fuel, or… well, you wouldn’t want to have to use the toilet anytime soon. Gradually over time, some people got small natural gas heaters installed in certain rooms of their homes to supplement the furnaces or potbelly stoves. The other problem with coal furnaces and stoves was….SOOT!!! My mother was a fanatic housekeeper, but even she couldn’t keep up with it. At times, within hours of her having cleaned the house, you could write your name on the mantel in the newly deposited soot. And for those who tried to keep their cars clean, they were fighting a losing battle, as naturally the problem was much worse outside, as you could “see the air,” or so it seemed. Then too, it wasn’t any good for your health breathing in all that stuff. (Pardon me while I clear my throat.) I’ve often wondered if all that foul air from those days has been wreaking havoc with my respiratory system ever since. (A word history is below the note)

*Scots-Irish tends to be more of an American term for people of Scottish descent from Northern Ireland. That area is known as Ulster, and the people there of Scottish descent call themselves “Ulster Scots,” rather than our term “Scots-Irish,” or the more corrupted form, “Scotch-Irish.” Remember, “Scotch” is a type of whiskey. (Hiccup!!!…Ah, ’scuse me!)

WORD HISTORY:
Soot-This word simply refers to smokey particles that "sit" or "settle" on something. It goes back to the Indo European root "sod/sed," which meant "sit," and which gave Indo European "sodo," which meant "soot." The Old Germanic offshoot was "sotam," with the same meaning, and this gave Old English "sot;" the "o" had a long sound. It wasn't until sometime during the Middle English era, (about 1066 A.D.-until around 1500) that the softer "o" sound developed into the double "o." German, a very close relative of English, has "Sott," and Swedish, another close relative, has "sot."

How We Get News/Information, Part Two

Americans, and indeed people all over the world, have always had to deal with rumors. Rumors are another form of information. A rumor may turn out to be fact or fiction, or something in between, but there’s no denying, rumors are a part of the information we have thrown at us. What is different is, in the age of the Internet, rumors can spread quickly; so quickly, that people with “agendas” can use rumors to further their own causes. In this day and age, unsolicited emails arrive with all sorts of “agendas;” from trying to sell us things, to trying to get us to click on a link that may take us to virus infested websites, to trying to get us to go to fake websites and provide personal information which can then be used to loot our bank accounts or even steal our identities. Then there are the “information” emails. These emails want us to believe that a person in one or the other political party is trying to do some nefarious thing. Usually these emails make some spectacular claim against a particular political figure, sometimes twisting truth to make it seem nefarious. And of course, the email frequently ends by urging the recipient to “pass along this email to all of your email contacts.” And just to prod the recipient further, the email “may” add, “If you don’t forward this email along to others, you’re not a good American,” or some such nonsense. Unfortunately, these things actually work at times, although I would guess that they work most often with people who are already predisposed to believing anything nasty about people they don’t much like in the first place. In that case, they actually serve to reinforce negative views of political opponents, but some folks, not necessarily predisposed to such beliefs, fall for them anyway. Another favorite expression used in these “propaganda” emails is, “This is something ‘they’ doesn’t want you to know,” or even, “You won’t read or hear this in the media.”

About a year and a half ago, I asked someone, a Republican, who they planned to vote for in the Republican primary. This person often passed along many of these political-type emails, mentioned above. The person answered something to the effect that, “I may not even vote. There isn’t anyone who really represents my views. John McCain is a traitor to America. I know the true story about him.” There was good news in this reply, that being there wasn’t anyone who represented that person’s views! There was no explanation as to why “John McCain is a traitor to America.” The man is a former POW, for Pete's sake! Don’t forget, this person was a REPUBLICAN! Just think what they must feel towards Democrats! Now, did this person get information about McCain from some email? I don’t know, but I do know that when I challenged some of this person’s forwarded emails, they didn’t like it, even replying one time, “I don’t want to get into a discussion about it!” Don’t forget folks, there’s that body part encased in your skull between your ears. Use it! Remember, just because you read something on the Internet, doesn’t make it true.

WORD HISTORY:
Prank-Linguists are uncertain of how English got this word, or perhaps it's modern meaning. English had a word "prank," (verb) which meant "to dress well, dress up." German, a close relative of English, has "prunk(en)," which has the same meaning, " to dress well," but also can mean "to show off, flaunt, strut," and Dutch, another close English relative, has "pronk(en)." By the 1500s, English had "prank," (noun) which for a time meant "malicious act," but which later softened to our modern meaning "a mischievous act." Whether this was derived from the verb is not known. "Prankster" seems to have been an invention of the American form of English. The original word is almost certainly related to "prance," which was used more in reference to horses, and whose relationship to "prank" is more easily seen in the German figurative sense, "strut."