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A Facebook comment on a post from last week resulted - as Facebook comments often do - in some back and forth between myself and the commentor. The conversation took a turn - as conversations often do - which led to me posting this photo of myself circa fifth grade,  ...questions about which led me to reply with a blog post from five years ago in which I used the picture, which engendered interest in the old post as well as the picture. So just for fun - and for those who haven't already read it the first time around or more recently after finding it in one of my last week's Facebook comments - today I'm re-posting this old blog entry from 1/30/2014. Enjoy! (or not) ;) I'll Tell Ya what's in a name! Patsy Ann Rupp, 1961 In last Saturday's Columbus Dispatch there was an article about a woman named Sheila who intends to legally change her name. She absolutely hates the name Sheila. She thinks it's really ugly. She won't allow that name spoken in her house. So she's going to change her name. To Sexy. She likes the name Sexy. I imagine at this point you're all asking the same two questions: 1. Why the heck would anybody want to be named "Sexy"? and 2. What's wrong with "Sheila"? Now, I have no idea what the answer to the first question is, but I know the answer to the second. What's wrong with "Sheila" is that Sheila hates it. And this I understand. Totally. Because I hate "Patricia". It's really ugly. I won't allow that name spoken in my house. And while Sheila may hate "Sheila", she should consider herself lucky that her name is pretty much nickname-proof and therefore incapable of devolving into an even worse form. For "Patricia", on the other hand, there are several awful nickname devolutions: - Tish (evokes a tissue) - Trish (evokes a tissue in the trash) - Trisha (evokes a tissue in the trash in Italy). - And then there's the worst of the variations, the one that was my parent's true intention for me, for which "Patricia" was merely a portal of social convention: Patsy Ann That's what my parents named me. Patsy Ann Rupp. I have a very early memory of someone, probably some friendly adult, bending down and asking me my name and me replying, "Patsy Ann Rupp" and feeling immediately embarrassed for saying such a silly-sounding string of words. From then on I was embarrased by my name and tried never to say it myself. Still, I kicked around the planet with that name hung on me for a good decade before I realized that I had the power to modify it and still be within the acceptable boundaries of "Patricia". The above school photo was taken when I was ten years old. It is one of the last photos in existence of Patsy Ann Rupp. Soon afterwards I re-rolled myself out as Pat Rupp. While "Pat Rupp" was a considerable improvement over "Patsy Ann Rupp", it flowed not at all, sounding less like a real name than the sound that might be made by the approach of a limping elephant: pat-RUPP, pat-RUPP, pat-RUPP, pat-RUPP. I still didn't like it . But it got me through high school. Pat Rupp, Senior Prom night.  After high school I put five hundred miles between me and the limping elephant and headed off to college in the midwest. Basking in the friendly vibes of the heartland, I changed myself into Patti, charmingly pronounced by those of my new friends who hailed from Cleveland and points west as "Pyetti". Which was fine, I liked Pyetti Rupp well enough. But it got even better when people started dropping the first name and I became known as "Rupp", or better yet, "Rupper", or best of all, in a sort of pre- "Big Lebowski" style, "The Rupper". Though to this day some of my college friends still occasonally refer to me by one of those variations on my old surname, when college ended and my first "real" job began with US Army in Germany, I had to return to using a forename and somehow slipped back into the limping elephant name for a few years. Then along came a name-changer.  I'd known Tom Liszkay back in college, and I won't go into how fate threw us together while he was stationed in Germany and I was working there. But I did like his surname, "Liszkay", not to mention the fine package that came with it. And so I finally ended up dropping the limping elephant for good. Tom and Patti (at last!) Liszkay, February 19, 1977  So I finally made peace with my name. And I'm good so long as nobody calls me:
1. Patricia 2. Patsy Ann 3. Pat Rupp 4. "Mother". (For reasons that I won't go into but have nothing to do with my own mother, I hate being called "Mother"). On the other hand, if one night the angel Gabriel appeared to me in a dream and offered to change my name for me and take care of all the necessary paperwork and historical revisions, I just might take him up on it...if only the name "Sexy" weren't already snagged... ;)
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 ...worked in Bangladesh where she delivered medical care in a camp for the impoverished Rohingya refugees,   ...who fled across that country's border to escape brutal violence and persecution in their homeland, the Rakhine State of Myanmar (see post from 1/3/2018, "On Her Way To Bangladesh").  
...and within half a year over one and a quarter million refugees had poured across Bangladesh's border into Cox's Bazar, where the primary refugee camp, the camp where Claire worked, was set up.  Bangladesh is the most densely populated country on the planet. It's a third-world country rife with social problems and battling wide-spread poverty among its own population. And yet in 2017 Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said, referring to the Rohingya refugees, “Bangladesh is not a rich country ... but if we can feed 160 million people, another 500 or 700,000 people, we can do it.”  By the time Claire arrived at Cox's Bazar the number of refugees there was closer to a million. From the window of her medical clinic she could see the refugees walking a cross the boarder past the soldiers. Claire, here with a Bangladeshi medical colleague,  In a few weeks Claire will be leaving again for a refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan.  Kurdistan is also in the midst of a refugee crisis as in recent years over two million Syrians, Christian Iraqis, Iraqi Yazidis - who are of their own ethnicity and religion - and other impoverished displaced foreigners have crossed its border seeking safety and asylum. When Claire first told me that she was going to Iraq I was worried for her safety. However she explained to me that Kurdistan, though technically part of Iraq, is its own autonomous state and is currently accepted as such by the government of Iraq. She likewise assured me that Kurdistan's border with Iraq was strong, secure, and heavily fortified with Kurdish troops. "Well then," I asked, "how are all those refugees getting in across that heavily fortified border?" Claire laughed. "Mom, they're refugees. They come into the country at the port of entry, of course." Of course. I'd forgotten that's how refugees normally enter the country in which they're seeking asylum, and that the right to seek asylum has been international law and the law of humanity since ancient times. Funny how one forgets that living in the U.S.  References:
https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/bangladesh/rohingya-refugee-crisis-quick-facts https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2017/09/rohingya-crisis-explained-maps-170910140906580.html https://www.reuters.com/article/US-myanmar-rohingya-bangladesh-trump-exc/exclusive-bangladesh-pm-says-expects-no-help-from-trump-on-refugees-fleeing-myanmar-idUSKCN1BU07C https://thekurdishproject.org/infographics/kurds-and-the-refugee-crisis/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_asylum From time to time I listen to Rush Limbaugh on our local Fox news affiliate radio station. Yesterday he was gleeful, positively over the moon, about a New York Times report that record numbers of migrants are now pouring across our southern border, over 2,000 a day, over 76,000 last month. Limbaugh somehow spun this as being President Obama's fault, referring to Obama's program expanding the number of Central Americans with children and victims of domestic abuse eligible to apply for refugee status in the U.S. What made Rush Limbaugh so happy was his conviction that this movement of people was proof that Donald Trump has been right all along about our country needing a border wall to keep these people out. As it turns out, most of the 76,000 are parents with children fleeing violence and destitution in the gang war-torn countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.   It also turns out that these exhausted, often sick, dehydrated, or injured refugees, who've crossed Mexico on foot and continue to travel in caravans for safety, are crossing the U.S. border between legal ports of entry - often geographically treacherous, dangerous areas - 
 According to the United States Immigration and Nationality Act, "Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival ...), irrespective of such alien's status, may apply for asylum ..." Which means that migrants on our soil have the right under our law to apply for asylum, notwithstanding Donald Trump's attempt - which was struck down in court - to abolish this law on his own. Ours is the richest country on the planet, with an over-abundance of land, food and resources, a country founded as a haven for refugees and built by the hard work and dreams of the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
 And yet our billionaire President, cheered on by a small but loud minority, 
 ...continues to erect walls against the helpless and the desperate and to make the hallmark of his administration cruelty to refugees, even small children, to whose suffering he and his disciples are blind, to whose pleas for help they are deaf. I wonder if God will punish us all for this?  References:
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/us/border-crossing-increase.html 2. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/immigration-reform-central-american-refugees/494948/ 3. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/trump-central-american-refugees.html 4. https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/12/03/asylum-explainer 5. https://www.uscis.gov/legal-resources/immigration-and-nationality-act 6. https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article91978142.html 7. https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/trump-is-not-king-cannot-change-us-asylum-system-via-executive-action ...Continued from yesterday: Late Saturday morning we checked out of the Berlin resort and headed home from Ohio Amish Country,   ...driving southwest back to Columbus through the same small towns,     
   ...and farmland.    We stopped for lunch in the town of Utica at the friendly Rivers Edge Grill,   ...where Tom ordered the meatloaf, which he declared the best restaurant meatloaf he'd ever had,  ...and I had a mushroom and Swiss burger that looked and tasted like a real burger - that is, one made from fresh ground beef as opposed to the frozen patty variety. It was really good, as were the hot, tasty fries.  After lunch drove over to the nearby Legend Hills Orchard Farm Market,        ...where we bought some apples.  We left Legend Hills Orchard,  ...and within the hour we were back in downtown Columbus, 
Good Eats And Other Amish Country Attractions  ...Continued from yesterday: We started off Friday morning with the yummy offerings of the Berlin Resort's breakfast buffet,     ...my favorite being the gooey iced cinnamon rolls.  After breakfast we drove back into Berlin to walk around the town and peruse the crafts stores, which in Amish Country are legion. We started with a big, new, many-roomed store at the edge of downtown called Country Gatherings.   The interior was open and airy,  ...and full of cute, bright, homey things,     ...and cheerful, inspiration-themed decorative pieces,    ....which one perused while gentle music and a light, pleasant potpourri wafted throughout the store. "Isn't this place soothing?" Tom asked as we strolled among the wares with fellow perusers.  I agreed that it was indeed,  ...as was the place next door,  ...which was of a similar genre,    ...down to the dulcet music, pleasant potpourri, and up-lifting decoratives.  We then continued up the block,       
 
 ...where the offerings were mostly of the chaste, wholesome, variety, 
 "Think they'd stock my book?," I asked Tom in jest, even though I believe the story I tell ultimately has an altruistic, even spiritual message about how we inhabitants of this big blue and green marble need to watch out for and care about one another. It's just that the characters in my book aren't very wholesome or chaste. (Definitely not chaste).  We also stopped at a thrift store,   ...where I found these kicky banners for my grand daughters' birthday parties, 
 ...where we picked up a few useful items for which we spent less than $8 altogether.  ...including this ceramic goose clock,  ...thanks to which my piano is now stylin'.  But, alas, I'm suffer non-buyer's remorse over this beautiful $20 set of dishes, below, that I let go. (Dang you, Marie Condo for getting all up in my head!)  By then it was lunch time, so we walked back up the block to our car, 
      ..to the town of Charm, 
 
  ..while Tom had the perch, which he declared very tasty. 
 Church spread - also known as Amish peanut butter - is an Amish delicacy served after Sunday services made of peanut butter, butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, marshmallow creme and vanilla extract. Is it good? Oh yeah. 
 After lunch, swearing we wouldn't eat again for the rest of the day and needing to walk off our pie, ice cream and church spread, we returned to Berlin for a visit to Sol's, the area's largest country crafts outlet,               We then walked next door to the German Village Center,  ...where we visited all the stores,  ...including the pharmacy with an old-fashioned soda fountain,  
 ...where I bought a rubber chicken toy, 
 ...and the Gospel Bookstore, which we reckoned likewise would not stock my book.  Having finally done a decent job of walking off lunch - foresooth, we were by then even bouncing around the idea of dinner down the road - we returned to the Berlin Resort, where the sun was beautifully setting,  ...until that good Amish Country cooking , did, in fact, start calling to us again, .and lots of other folks, apparently, who we joined at Boyd and Wurthmann's Rsetaurant, which was opened until 7:30 pm on this Friday night. 
 ...and a mountain of really good coleslaw, 
 ...with an Amish peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the side. 
 ...down to the children's village.   Then we walked back to the hotel, in time to watch the evening's movie, "The Hunger Games,"  ...which are definitely not played in Amish Country.
To be continued... |
"Tropical Depression"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY Archives
March 2026
I am a traveler just visiting this planet and reporting various and sundry observations,
hopefully of interest to my fellow travelers. Categories |
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