{"id":6485,"date":"2020-11-05T07:18:30","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T15:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=6485"},"modified":"2020-11-05T07:18:32","modified_gmt":"2020-11-05T15:18:32","slug":"museum-of-old-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/museum-of-old-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Museum of Old Names"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-6485\" data-postid=\"6485\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-6485 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n\n\n<p>A Saturday stroll through a Pioneer cemetery on the Secret Coast that doubled as a museum of old American names provoked some ruminations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, they poured a lot of concrete and laid a lot of marble to mark the dead. It seems like such a waste of time and materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How does a first name come into general use and then pass away into oblivion? What changes in our culture for a name to fall into disuse or one to skyrocket in popularity so that a teacher has five Ashleys in one classroom?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Who knows? Perhaps a new movie or reality show star takes off. A sports star or a cartoon character. A doll or rap mogul. Someone who dies for a good cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps Americans were duller a century ago. Perhaps less pretentious. Perhaps everything connected into our current destructive vainglory as a nation is somehow connected to these new names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Something else to ponder: Certain Old Testament names have vanished while others remain. (e.g. Aaron versus Moses, Rachel versus Ruth). Why? Why? Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let us consider the names etched into quasi permanence into the concrete and marble in a tiny disheveled cemetery that evinced no charm nor morbidity. Even the crows seemed indifferent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eva<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abe<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Leonida<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ralph<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Etta<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bonnie<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Elmer<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Constatine<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Claude<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maude<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Harriet<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fred<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gertrude<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Esther<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pearl<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fannie<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gus<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dennis<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Estelle<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Effie and Elvin (married)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why did these names fade away? Don&#8217;t we need a return to Elmer and Estelle? Yes, it seems we do.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Saturday stroll through a Pioneer cemetery on the Secret Coast that doubled as a museum of old American names provoked some ruminations: First, they poured a lot of concrete and laid a lot of marble to mark the dead. It seems like such a waste of time and materials. How does a first name [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6485"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6490,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6485\/revisions\/6490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}