The Middle Name Meme

While I haven’t been tagged to do the middle name meme, I’ve decided to take up Julie’s invitation to do it. And like her, I won’t tag anyone. I changed my middle name from John to my wife’s maiden name of Crews, thus following the examples of the Czech patriot Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and John Ono Lennon. Here are the rules, two of which which I intend to break (no tags and two facts for three letters) :

1. You have to post these rules before you give the facts.

2. Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don't have a middle name, just make one up...or use the one you would have liked to have had.

3. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog-post containing your own middle name game facts.

4. At the end of your blog-post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

C--Children: Anne--back home right now, waiting to go to India to be the official representative of the family at Sarah’s wedding. She’ll be resuming her studies once she gets back--most likely in Museum Studies. Sarah will be marrying Vainateya Deshpande in January. She’s at the University of Maryland right now, working on a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. James--high school senior, who’s also planning to study creative writing in college. Chronology--No “H” for history, so it’s the closest I could get. I’ve always been fascinated by the past, and spent two years in graduate school before quitting and finding a career in the travel business. Someday I hope to write a biography of Edward Bonney, the miller and hotel manager who became a celebrated bounty hunter in the 1840s, and who tracked down the killers of Colonel George Davenport, for whom the Iowa city is named.

R--Railroads. I loved trains from an early age. In the 1950s my parents would take me to the Rock Island Lines depot in Iowa City to watch the trains. I became an avid railroad fan during my high school days. I’ve worked for U.S. offices of the French National Railroads and the Italian State Railways before being hired by Amtrak. I recently published “Time Passages” in Remember the Rock Magazine. Rexroth--Kenneth Rexroth, who spent his early years in Elkhart, wrote some of the most beautiful poetry in the twentieth century, but is not well-known.

E--Episcopalian. Even though my work schedule makes it impossible to attend Episcopal services, I still count myself an Episcopalian. And I am very sad at the efforts to break up my church--and upset with such non-Anglicans as megachurch pastor Rick Warren who have aided and abetted the schism. Anglicans have always (well--almost always) been able to tolerate our differences. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the brilliant theologian Richard Hooker argued that the Church of England should be a “middle way” between Puritanism and Roman Catholicism. A church that could accommodate Puritan evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics ought to be able to live with a disagreement on the role of women and homosexuals. Elkhart--I’m still holding on to the fading hope that I can get a ticket clerk position in South Bend and live in Elkhart full-time. The city has fallen on hard times, but it’s been the home of so many creative people--Ambrose Bierce, Kenneth Rexroth, architect Marion Mahony Griffin, and Pulitzer Prize Winners J.N. “Ding” Darling, Howard James, and Charles Gordone (the first African American to win the Pulitzer in drama). I have a real love for the place.

W--Writing. What I’d really like to do for a living.

S--Spouse Kathleen Crews Wylder, the bright, lovely, and funny young woman I met in college and who is still the center of my thoughts and concerns after nearly 35 years of marriage.