By René A. Smith
SAN DIEGO — I think I say that I was born at an early age because of the meaning of my name, reborn in the French.
But, I get ahead of myself here, so let me start with my full name: René Allen Smith. A crashing lack of harmony in the name. I always thought my name should be something resonant name like René Alan Aubergois. Mother married someone so that I would have a Father, but why a “Smith”?: couldn’t she as easily picked someone with a catchy name.
But, the discordance has a consistent effect: people remember my name. This was counterproductive when I was trying to get into trouble and wanted to be secretive. Oddly enough, I can remember no one else’s name unless I hear it repeatedly.
Let me say right here that I am a member of the male persuasion. Earlier in life, I tried to tell people to include the accent but then every Francophile or -phone would ask “Is that accent grave or aigu?” At college, I was admitted to the Women’s Dormitory, which I wantonly entered until a screaming Freshman called out the Resident Adviser and I was shunted back to the front office. On the brighter side, I always received more offers for feminine hygiene products than I could use and I shared them with my non-male friends. Further, a distinct honor was offered me which I reluctantly refused when the Journalism Honors Sorority invited me to join.
And so it’s continued. With my wife Rita, we are occasionally invited to gay and lesbian events in our neighborhood. On emails, since there is no convenient way to say, “Hello mate, I’m a man”, I regularly must correct individuals and this often becomes awkward. I hate it when a senior City Official starts a warm, personal and gracious note with “Ms. Smith thank you for your participation…”.
When my wife and I married, she chose to keep her name rather than becoming a “Smith.” I so hated my last name that I almost accepted to the idea of taking the name of her ex-husband.
I am always reminded of the newish American status of my family by my middle name, Alan. My then 13-year-old aunt had a crush on Alan Ladd, the movie actor. when I was born. But, no one in my family recognized or knew enough to check the spelling of his name.
And, you should try doing genealogy when all the tools in the field try to match you up by your surname.
I like to think that I learned some lessons when it came to naming my children. With one, I picked an intellectual basis for the two given names, for the other, I picked names for their melodic quality. [Eliot-Andrew and Briana Kathleen]. Nonetheless, even with my life lessons, I couldn’t help but give one of a shortened name. Now my son carries on the family tradition of needing to explain the spelling of his first name. Was there a subconscious wish to bring him the qualities of separateness that my name gave me?
So, what is in a name? Is it a burden or a blessing. Like almost everything in my life, it is both with a tilt toward the positive. The name always cut me out of the herd and that became a formative quality of my character. I think I will keep it.
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Steely Dan opined “the things you find important, I can’t understand.” A school of black thought, a school of white. I know some people whose viewpoints are always so sharply focused that I tell them “Your television must not have had gray in it when you were growing up. Only black and white.” It is said that engineers and scientists can only see black and white and others, such as business people can only see gray.
To see in black and white is to see in two dimensions. To see in color is to see in at least three. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. To see in black and white on a TV screen means that you must parse the electronic on – off signals to find the black and white. That means that there will be no nuance, only the cold comfort of fact. To see in color blurs all such simple distinctions. There are no more simple choices.
Color blind — One of my college roommates was color blind. His Mother sent him to school with 2 inch by 2 inch white sheets pinned to each garment: blue, red, green, brown. There were no mauves, no brindles, no fuschias in his lexicon.
I was so baffled by what it must feel like that I went with him to a Doctor’s appointment where there was a color wheel test. Where I could clearly see delineations of brown and green, crisply outlined, he saw a sheet of gray.
The U.S. Government thought it appropriate to hand him a rifle and an airline ticket marked “Jungles of Viet-Nam.”
Colour and color — Are we separated by a common language or are we just stubborn in wanting to be whom we think we are? These courses always remind me of the trivial yet telling differences between cultures. We all know what we are talking about whether we say “colour” or “color” but yet that becomes a form of distinctness. I think about it as a distinction without a difference but I do wonder.
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Smith, a member of the Jewish community, is a retired naval officer, freelance writer, and urban critic.