"Putting on the Ritz" and Other Eponyms

The Associative Meaning of Words

Studying the origin of a word adds to its usefulness in the same way that knowing the history of a place adds meaning to its vista. Before it was a hallowed cemetery, a famous speech, or an epic battlefield, the word Gettysburg referred only to a quiet Pennsylvania town, named for its first English settler, Samuel Gettys, and dating back well before the Revolutionary War. Likewise, most American school teachers know that Columbine is a high school in Littleton, Colorado. Fewer know that the school was named for a small flower in that region. The simpler meaning of the words Gettysburg and Columbine took on unforeseen complexity by events later associated with those words.

Like historic landmarks, many commonly-used words have stories behind them. The fact that such words typically carry their current meaning regardless of whether or not we know their stories is no different, I suppose, than a young school boy thinking Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is where he must have lived before moving to Washington DC.

After a few years with only patches of time for writing here at Patterns of Ink, I don’t mean to venture back with a professorial series on word association or the origin of words (etymology). In fact, the purpose of this post stems from the post which is to follow. I began writing a piece about my father-in-law who yesterday celebrated his 80th birthday, and something in that post triggered these thoughts as a preface of sorts.

The remainder of these thoughts about a tiny etymological category called eponyms, sometimes called “people words.” Eponyms are common words that  come from a person's name. True eponyms are not proper nouns like Gettysburg, even though that geographic name can be traced back to a man named Gettys; eponyms are names  no longer capitalized, like boycott which was once proper names (in this case, Charles Cunningham Boycott) but whose proper use shifted to mean something entirely else. (I realize that placing “entirely” before “else” sounds much more awkward than placing it afterwards and saying “something else entirely," but I will leave it as is for effect.) Because Charles Cunningham Boycott was once the victim of non-violent economic isolation,  more than a hundred years later, such actions are still called boycotts. The word is now used with no need for knowledge of its history and is therefore a true eponym according to the Alpha Dictionary's explanation of eponyms and non-eponyms.

Sometimes eponyms come from the royal title following a person’s name. This is true of the Earl of Sandwich, who fancied eating a slices of cold beef between two pieces of bread while playing cards, now such menu items are called sandwiches.

Likewise with cardigan sweaters, “ named after James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, a British Army Major General who led the "Charge of the Light Brigade," immortalized by Tennyson, during the Crimean War. It is modeled after the knitted wool waistcoat that British officers supposedly wore during the war.” This may explain why cardigan sweaters were the manly garments of choice for men’s fraternities and “varsity letter” clubs in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

There was once a man named César Ritz who became famous for his extravagantly decorated and furnished hotels designed to serve the upper echelon of world travelers. His last name soon became so associated with such finery that it became an adjective: ritzy. Much later when Nabisco (the NAtional BIScuit COmpany) patented a new kind of fancy cracker that could be used for hors d'oeuvres and the like, it is no wonder they chose the name Ritz. Whenever we have the desire to live like the rich if only for a night, we’re “Putting on the Ritz.”

That song, written by White Christmas creator Irving Berlin in 1929, has gained popularity through the years with the help of Hollywood’s finest, like Clark Gable and Fred Astaire. Decades later, it was given new life—literally—in Mel Brook’s  Young Frankenstein and its latest cover prompted a flash mob in Moscow, where it sounds like they may are really saying "Putin on the Ritz."







Something tells me that President Ronald Reagan would never have envisioned such a sight just two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. At this Youtube link you can spend much time watching various covers of  "Putting on the Ritz.". After you've had your fill of this song at the screens and links above, come back to the subject at hand...

If a man named César Ritz had not had such fine taste in hotel interiors or if his name had been  Walter Lebowski, odds are that the hotel chain of that name would not have have become a fancy adjective nor inspired Irving Berlin's song (nor even the cracker).

To the scores of Walter Lebowskis out there who may come upon this post in a Google search, I mean no disrespect to your name. The same would be true of my own name, Tom Kapanka. Ritz sounds ritzy and inspires a song, Lebowski and Kapanka do not. It's that simple. Discussing it further is probably as pointless as saying, "It's a good thing Columbus sailed in 1492, because that year rhymes so nicely with "ocean blue," and how else would we ever remember the date.  Much of language transcends science--even art-- and some things are best left to the mystical realm of the unknown.

This ends our brief lesson on eponyms, which is merely a preface to a single part of a future post

which pays tribute to my father-in-law on his 80th birthday. In the meantime, go put on a cardigan sweater, make a little ham sandwich on a Ritz cracker and watch that Moscow flash mob "Putin on the Ritz" again... unless you wish to boycott it because of Putin's recent controversies in the Snowden matter.

A Kansas Rainbow...

A few months back, I wrote a piece called “Parched” based in part on the dry, feral land I’ve seen in Kansas where once fertile farms had been. Like all poems, the metaphor was meant to be taken beyond the obvious, and without saying much more…

I will say, however, that I was in Kansas yesterday, making a brief stop at my wife Julie’s folk’s house for the night. It is from this place near Waverly, that I have learned nearly all I know of Kansas and heat and horses and the struggles of farmers through the 20^th Century. I have stood in the place where the picture below was taken for thirty-five summers in a row, since the summer of 1978 when I first flew from Michigan to Kansas to visit Julie.

It was in the summer of 1980 that we were married here, a summer that saw temperatures exceed 110^o F for the entire month of June. On our wedding day, June 28, the temperature was 114^o F. When we arrived at our reception, a large but not air-conditioned building, dozens of candles, not yet lit, were lying flat on the tables, wilted in the heat, holding their 12” tapered shape, their wide end still secure in the star-shaped glass candle holders, but otherwise limp and unable to be stand tall for lighting. We removed them from the tables. I wish the photographer had gotten a picture of that sad sight, soon forgotten as our guests arrived, fanning themselves with our wedding programs. It was hot …. But I digress…

 (You, Tom, digress? Never…)

The point I was making was that I had all of those dry, hot, and callused Kansas images in mind when I wrote “Parched,” and then yesterday, for the first time in my 35 years of visiting here in Kansas, a passing rain fell leaving behind only damp grass and this rainbow. It is only the second rainbow that I’ve seen in several years. The other one was last September at our school (seen here). I’m not a mystic, and I won’t attempt to add anything to the beauty of this rainbow, but I immediately thought of “Parched” and that Scripture itself tells us that the first rainbow was a promise from God, formed at the end of Noah’s epic struggle. I suppose that is why rainbows always inspire such hope… hope that the storm has passed and bright days lie ahead.

 

Thoughts about April First...

April 1^st , 7:00PM,and no April Fools pranks pulled among the three of us at home—unless one calls four hours of cleaning the garage a joke. I suppose it’s because we’re on Spring Break. If this were a school day, all sorts of funny stories would be buzzing in the hallways.
 
Years ago, when I was teaching in Iowa, the bell rang to begin class, and a young man come up to me discreetly standing between me and 24 students. Jack was funny guy capable of pranks, so when he whispered, “Mr. K, your fly is down.” I said, “Yeah, right… ‘April Fools’ Ha Ha…”  His eyes widened, and he whispered it again so earnestly that I stepped into the hall and came back in with a wink and a nod in his direction. It was not a joke. He just nodded as if to say, “Gotcher six,” and kept the matter to himself, sparing me much embarrassment. That was almost twenty-eight years ago. The young man went off to college, graduated, got married, and became a chaplain in the Air Force (a position he still holds to this day). Thank you, Jack, for not taking advantage of a teacher on a day that would have excused it. 
 

Even with little anecdotes like that in my life, April 1^st as a date was pretty much like any other day until 1995. It fell on a Saturday that year. I had been gone all day working a wedding (back when I had a videography business). I returned home about 11:00 PM and was putting away my equipment in my downstairs editing room. Julie was asleep in our room on the main floor, and Emily and Kim were asleep in their second-story bedroom when the phone rang. At that hour a phone call is never a good thing, I listened with surprising composure as my brother-in-law told me the sad news: a few hours before, my father had died suddenly of acute myocardial infarction—heart attack. My mother and sister were still busy at the hospital, and they had asked him to call the brothers. I sat on the couch for nearly an hour before waking Julie to tell her. She began sobbing immediately, something my mind had not yet allowed my heart to do. I don’t remember how we told the girls. The rest of that week is a blur, and no one wants to read about such things anyway….

I'm writing this only to say that on April 1^st my siblings and I share an emotional connection. We go through the day with its jokes and smiles. We do our jobs and interact like any other day, but at some private moment … we share a twinge of heartache hidden deep inside--like a pair of folded white gloves tucked away in the corner of a drawer. [The funeral home issued white gloves for the pall bearers and told us to keep them.]

With that as a backdrop, let me tell you about something from yesterday that prompted this post....

Yesterday, my whole family was together for Easter Dinner: our three daughters, two sons-in-law, two grand-children, Julie and me. It was nice.

 Julie being from Kansas with plenty of KU fans in her family and me being a big U of M fan, the afternoon NCAA conference game was an event we’d been looking forward to. During half-time, my daughter Emily was looking through some old pictures. She and her mother are gathering photos for Natalie’s graduation Open House)  While I was getting ready for the second half to start, Emily handed me these old photo-booth pictures.

I had not seen them in years. The one frame where Dad is looking right at us (right at the lens) is hauntingly serene. My note on the back of the picture says it was August 31, 1978.  But some other part of my brain remembers details I didn’t jot down on the back: I can hear Grandma laughing, and ten-year-old  Jimmy warning that the pictures were about to start, and Mom concerned that she is not in the frame (and she barely was). Only half of me was in the booth. The closed curtain was draped over my back.

And there in all the hub-bub,
Dad is just sitting there in disbelief that we talked him into that curtained booth in the penny arcade at Cedar Point. Grandma rode the Blue Streak roller coaster that day (It says so on the back of the photos. She lived to the age of 99, and was adventurous right up to the end.) In the last frame, Mom is trying to give Dad a kiss. The whole trip to Sandusky was a lark. We hitched up the old Apache pop-up camper and spent the night at the campground on the point. We left in such a hurry that we forgot to bring a camera, but this strip of photo-booth pictures captures the spontaneity and laughter that  a regular camera would have missed. There is not one corner of a frame that tells anyone this was a Cedar Point in 1978, but they are four wonderful blinks in time. 

 A few days after packing into that photo booth, I was packing my '65 Delta 88 and driving to South Carolina for my senior year of college.  I was not sad about returning to school because I couldn't wait to see Julie. Four months later, I would propose to her on New Year’s Eve. My other three siblings were not with us that day at Cedar Point because they were married and not with us that day. As our new families and households began in the years ahead, they were all still very connected to the home we shared with Mom and Dad. If you are new to Patterns of Ink, there are many chapters about these people and the life we shared.

This past Saturday, I heard the coach or Wichita State tell his team that to beat Ohio State they did not have to play a perfect game--it did not even have to be their most excellent game... all they had to do was play well. (And they did.) I found it interesting that he told them that, and I think it is true of life's demands in general. 

The home and people I sometimes write about here are far from perfect and often fell/fall short of excellent... we were and are people doing our best with the time and temperaments and tools granted us. Thank, God, we are not called to perfection, a standard we would soon resent. We are called to follow as best we can the example and teachings of Christ.... knowing we will fall short again and again....we are called to press on toward the mark. Complete (i.e."perfect") attainment is not required but apathy is forbidden, for in the end, simply put.... we are called to care. 
I was truly blessed to come from such a home.

My Mom Used to Sing This Song to us When We Were Kids...

I know it has nothing to do with the reasons we celebrate Easter, but my mother knew fun songs for all the holidays, and it was never an issue in our home to sing seasonal favorites that were incongruous with the sacred themes of Christmas and Easter. She had a good voice and loved singing at the piano (as I have written here before), but I suppose her truest gift was the abandon to break out in song a cappella whenever one came to mind. She used to sing this as we died hard-boiled eggs at the kitchen table.

The tradition of hiding Easter baskets in our house was equally welcome, a tradition that my siblings and I continued in our homes with our own children. It occurred to Julie and I yesterday, that it was the first Easter in 28 years that we did not make baskets. It's been an unusual year, but perhaps the tradition will pick up again.

A few years ago, I found this "Eggbert" record in an antique store--not the 45 RPM version in this video, but another version on a small-hole 78 RPM red record. Now all I need is a record player that plays 78 RPM. Haven't had a record player for years (and one with that speed for decades).

Parched

The ground is clumps of hard and crackled clay
where creeks and ponds and puddled mud once lay
in meadows draped in a purple haze
of cocklebur in bloom. Gone are the days
of soft, dark loam when just as spring's begun
the plowshare sliced from morn to setting sun.
Too long the wind and weathered walls
have whispered in the empty stalls
of barns and whined at windows in the night
where just beyond in the flickering light
a shadow prays…as another sighs,
and with calloused hands against their eyes
they plead again in soft steadfast refrain…
“Ours, O, Lord, yes ours… please send our roots Your rain.”

Tom Kapanka
©Begun 1-26-12;/ completed 2-8-13

I realize that this poem comes out of nowhere and doesn't fit the season or the recent events around me. I found a draft of it in a file on my external hard-drive today. It was just a bunch of lines that I did not recall even starting until I read them again. The date on that file was January 26, 2012. So the thoughts had sat there undisturbed for over a year, and then as I read them today, I remembered where they were going with it and finished them. Like so many things I write, if not properly read aloud, the lines run-on, but I trust the images come through. It happened to fall into a sonnet of sorts.

Two summers ago, while visiting Julie's folks in Kansas in July, I was in the car with my father-in-law. Many farms in that part of wheat contry still have the remnant of a barn with gaps between the boards that let in light and wind, but they are typically still maintained by someone no longer living there.

I saw rolling hills of cocklebur and said something about the purple cast they gave the landscape. My father-in-law told me the weed was an invasive species that takes over acres and acres of pasture, leaving them unfit for crops or livestock. He pointed out that the fields I was admiring were once good farm land but had gone feral many years ago. I had heard that term applied to wild animals (like cats found in abandoned houses) but never to land, and it made me ponder the farmer's plight: even in the best of times he struggles to keep the growing things he wants from those he doesn't--to separate the wheat from tares, so to speak. He knows that, left alone, the weeds win. That much he expects as part of life and Eden's curse. But there are other times, times of drought, when even the daily struggle of separating good from bad is lost for lack of rain, and in such times he is reminded of his total dependence on God. This is hard for farmers because they are problem solvers who believe hard work gives hands their worth.

 

Such were my thoughts when I began this piece more than a year ago before forgetting I'd begun it. I chose not to set it in time, and kept the praying couple vague (shadows). The flickering light could be a candle, a lantern, or a bare dim bulb. They could be settlers from a 150 years ago; they could be the grandchildren of settlers in the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression; they could be living on a barren farm right now.

But I mostly left the time and characters vague to take the notion of being parched beyond dry land to a sort of personal, spiritual drought. This latter image needs no season, and like the farmer's plight can only be solved from above.

The refrain at the end is a variation on a line from Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89) I first read the poem entitled ‘Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend’ over 30 years ago, and though I cannot say I'm an avid reader of Hopkins, his earnest plea for rain and personal restoration has come to mind at various times of "drought" through the years.

Found after Half-a-Year...

It was Christmas Break, and a dozen volunteers and I were in the building working on the “Under One Roof” project. I was looking for a roll of duct tape in a large box that has been in the corner of my office since mid-August when we moved back into our building. Along with the tape, I found an object wrapped in paper towels with a rubber band around it. I studied the thing in disbelief—not wondering what it was but amazed that half-a-year had passed since I’d last seen it.

I had put this object in that box at 6:00 PM, June 29, 2012. How could I possibly remember that exact point in time?

Just a few weeks before that date, all the teachers had been asked to turn in their keys and remove their classroom belongings by June 20^th. With the help of dozens of parents and students, the classrooms were empty and four storage units a half-mile away were packed from floor to ceiling. The task took three days, but we met the stated deadline, and we were trusting God to direct our path between then and September. There is no earthly way to explain the peace and good spirit that the staff had as we stepped into the summer of 2012, but never did we better understand  I Peter 5:7, "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you."  I will admit, however, that the school was sadly quiet for the next nine days as the office staff packed and wrapped up the loose ends of the 2011-2012 school year.

On that last business day of the school’s fiscal year, Friday, June 29^th, the office staff had offered to stay and help me pack what little remained, but I assured them I was almost done and could roll out my last boxes on a kitchen cart. That final hour was quiet until the custodian stepped in to remind me he was scheduled to lock up and code out at 6:00. He and I were the last to leave the building that night, and it felt strange not knowing when or whether ever I would return.
 
That’s how I remember what time it was when I wrapped the thing in paper towels. That’s how I knew it had been a half-a-year since I had seen it.

The six months seemed a blur until I pulled off the paper towels and stared down at my found treasure. It was the blue coffee mug I used for more than 4,500 days since my first week at Calvary Christian Schools in July of 2000.

My wife  Julie bought it for me the week we moved to Michigan. One glance at its image and inscription and you’ll understand why she knew the then-new administrator of the Calvary Eagles needed it on his desk.
 

Isaiah 40:31 (ESV)

³¹ but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

You all know the passage, but I’d like to share some thoughts about the first three verbs in that verse: wait, renew, and mount up.

Most translations imply that waiting is active not passive; it is doing not dreaming. In this sense, we wait not like restaurant patrons waiting for their meal but like the waiter who is “waiting on” tables. This kind of waiting is about service. Believers are those who wait upon the Lord with hope and expectation that what God says He will do. It is waiting in obedience to "occupy ‘til He comes." (Luke 19:13)

The second verb is renew. The promise that our strength can be renewed implies that it can also be depleted.  The truth is serving others can be exhausting. Some may ask, "What about the promise in the second part of the verse that says, 'They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Doesn’t that mean that we will never get tired while serving the Lord?"  I don’t think so. Even well-trained  runners are exhausted after “pressing on toward the mark.” (Philippians 3:13-15)  I don’t think the word weary implies physical exhaustion as much as complete mental or emotional fatigue. In other words, being weary is not being tired from what you’re doing—it is being tired of what you’re doing. Weary is a dangerous place to be; it is dark and pathless valley cluttered with quit and overshadowed by the bad decisions of centuries past.

It is for this reason the Apostle Paul encourages us not to “grow weary in well doing.” (Galatians 6:9)   He is not saying “Never tire yourself for a worthy cause" but rather "Never become tired of the cause." It is healthy to be spent at the end of a hard day or a hard week. Such tiredness is to be expected in service. It is why God created the seventh day to rest.  He knows we need recovery time... renewal time. Sometimes we need a change of pace.

This pattern of work and rest, anticipation and reward, is also implied in the second part of Isaiah 40:31. If you can’t run another mile, then walk instead, but don’t stop. Don’t faint. Regroup. Refocus… ReNEW your strength... then carry on. That is what  my coffee mug says. The verse implies a pattern of exertion and renewed strength.
 
This brings us to the third verb of Isaiah 40:31: mount up. The female bald eagle can have a 7’ wingspan and weigh up to sixteen pounds, the maximum legal weight of a bowling ball. She can also carry over four pounds of prey in her clenched talons. Assuming that circumstances have grounded an eagle, stopped it in its tracks, the most difficult part of flight is what Isaiah calls “mounting up with wings.” The hardest part is taking off, regaining momentum.

Mounting up, and up in search of the wind or an updraft takes non-stop effort—it is more grueling than graceful. There is a big difference between “mounting up with wings” and soaring. To the observer, it’s  like the Olympic contrast between watching the 200 meter butterfly in a churning pool and a 700 ‘ ski jump from a snowy slope.

There are over 7,200 feathers on a bald eagle, the largest being those used for lift and thrust on the wings and maneuvering on the tail. Imagine the strength it takes to power those 7’ wings and raise the weight of a bowling ball to altitudes above 10,000 feet (over two miles up in the sky). Our favorite pictures of eagles show them soaring at that height. Wings outstretched in effortless flight—like that poster behind the coffee mug above or this one below.
From high in the air an eagle can swoop down at 35 MPH, and use the speed to regain its former altitude. As Newton put it,“A body in motion tends to stay in motion.” But from ground level… from a stand-still… “mounting up with wings like eagles” is hard work, but the hope of soaring gives strength to weary wings. Someday we may share more of the details of lessons learned and God's provision in those six months that my mug went missing, but for now let us take Isaiah 40:31 to heart. We have soared and will soon soar again, but for six months we have been in the hard-work phase. Never have so many supporters been doing so much for Calvary Christian Schools. We are waiting on the Lord, but not idly waiting. We are fully occupied, serving Him with hope and anticipation. We will not grow weary of the effort but when we need to catch our breath,  we will change our pace, renew our strength, and not faint. We will press upward toward our high calling and will give Him the glory when in HIs time we soar.

With that in mind, let us turn our thoughts from the little mug on my desk toward much bigger things.

On behalf of the School Board, staff,  consultants and many supporters now assisting CCS, allow me to give you a sneak preview of  a billboard that you will soon see at two locations on the main highways near our school:

Tom Kapanka, CCS Administrator

Speaking of George Bailey

Last week I wrote about our new puppy named for the hero of Frank Capra's Christmas classic, It's a Wonderful Life.

 

Last night, our school family felt like they were in the last scene of that movie when all the neighbors come into the living room of the Bailey home with a laundry basket full of collected money for a friend in need.

 

I'll not go into detail here, but our laundry basket was full and running over, and those present know what that means about the offering. It was well over DOUBLE the ambitious goal.

 

Imagine with me that the picture below is of over 600 "neighbors" not in Bedford Falls but in Fruitport, Michigan, gathered not at the Bailey home but in the living room of our school with standing room only in the back, the best attended Christmas program in the history of our school.

 

 

Our annual Christmas concert is full of traditions. For instance, the band plays "Sleigh Ride" each year and invites alumni and alumni parents to come up with their instruments and join in that iconic song. This year there seemed to be more "joiners" than ever, packing the stage. Then at the end of the program, a new tradition began: the high school choir (left of picture) had about 20 alumni, parents and teachers join them in singing the Hallelujah Chorus. I was one of the adults singing with them, and at the end as we closed with a congregational song, I could not resist taking this picture of our friends and family. It was a wonderful night in a wonderful life. We give Him all the glory!



Meet Bailey...the Best Stocking-Stuffer Ever!

I have not had time to write as often as I'd like here at POI over the past year, and I miss this dimension of ordinary living, but I wanted to share this picture of a very happy puppy named Bailey on my blanket-covered lap. Julie and Natalie typically have him, but they plopped him on me a few nights ago as I was watching the news, and I snapped this picture with my phone.
 

Bailey weighs less than three pounds at nine weeks and will be six or seven pounds as an adult.

He's named in honor of main character in the holiday classic, "It's a Wonderful Life." Was there ever a truer friend to the underdog than that selfless George Bailey who lassoed the moon for his girl, saved the Bailey Building and Loan, stood up to Potter, hid ZuZu's petals in his pocket, and helped an angel earn wings?

That's a lot to wrap up in a name for such a little puppy, but that's how the family (and even extended family) settled on his name. It was not until days later that we learned there was a children's story about a dog named Bailey who goes to school... a fact that was icing on the cake.

Readers here at POI may recall our Westie "Rudyard Kipling"--better known as "Kippy" who was a member of our family for over 13 years. It was last Christmas Break that we experienced that difficult day when the math of "dog years" and reality of crippling pain leaves no alternative but that sad anddreaded drive to the vet who truly understands why tears come easier than words as you talk through the steps of saying goodby to a friend.

The sadness of that day (and an assessment of our own stage in life) kept our home puppy-free for nearly a year, but in late September Natalie began showing us pictures of what breeders call a "multe-pom." Her kind hints met firm resistance for weeks, and then one night, I said, "Nat, I'm fine with the idea, but you know Mom has good reasons ..." I barely got out the sentence,  and to my surprise, Julie was ready to join in Nat's excitement and call a breeder in Rockford. Once the pictures of Bailey came  to her phone, there was no turning back. She was ready to have a little friend in the house again.

When my girls are happy, I'm happy... and I'll admit it. I like little Bailey, too. They can put him in my lap anytime they want.

A few nights ago I was trying to take a picture of him in front of me on the kitchen floor. He suddenly scampered behind me and crawled up through the tunnel under my arm as if to say, "Shoot, if you're going to take a picture, you might as well be in it with me. We boys have to stick together."