Friendkind—a word gift

Recently, a friend had knee surgery.  Taking linguistic license in wishing him well on Facebook, I noted one wobbly step for him in recovery as one happy step for friendkind.  Later, I thought to Google “friendkind” and found no links.  As the holiday season engulfs us, I would like to offer this new-born word to describe the wonderful world of friends!

As I am still feeling a bit travel-lagged after three weeks of both joy and sorrow on the road, I am going to take a hiatus from blogging until January, 2014.  Season’s greetings to you all.  May you have a sweet and safe holiday, and may you all go forth in peace and friendkind.

Bed bugging hot shots

                In our recent travels, I have run across two familiar sayings that have taken on clearer meaning for me:  “sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite” and “hot shot.”  In touring historical sites in the South, we learned both Confederate and word history.

                People have been wished off to bed for centuries with the blessing, “sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”  I always took the “sleep tight” part to mean “sleep snuggly” or “sleep safely.”  However, the phrase “sleep tight” actually means something entirely different.  We toured the Stonewall Jackson house in Lexington, Virginia and, in the bedroom, saw the mattress resting on a rope weaving.  I have seen these precursors of box springs before, and I knew that people kept keys to tighten the ropes to keep the mattress firm.  I did not know that “sleep tight” refers to tightening the bed ropes in order to sleep on a firm mattress.

                “Don’t let the bed bugs bite” is quite literal.  Bed bugs can come from a variety of sources.  In the olden days when mattresses were stuffed with straw and such, bed bugs came from those materials.  In parts of the South, people used Spanish moss, which contained chiggers (nasty biting bugs), to stuff mattresses.  Occasionally, I like to have fun with this part of the saying by wishing, “Sleep tight, don’t bite the bed bugs!” Henry Ford also used Spanish moss to stuff the seats of his early automobiles.  In fact, the phrase  “you’re itchin’ for a Ford” came from the chiggers.  Spanish moss also made for a “bumpy” ride not attributable to ruts in the road but bugs in the seats.

                If I have bugged you sufficiently at this point, you may want to get out a can of Hot Shot.  If not, keep reading.  I always thought of “hot shot” as a slang term for someone who had considerable prestige or influence, or at least thought so.  In explaining the conflict at Fort Sumter, the docent informed us that the Confederate army fired many cannon shots over a long period of time at the fort, to little avail.  Cold cannon balls cannot do much damage on thick brick walls or even inside the fort.  Finally, the Confederates realized that if they heated the cannon balls and then fired them, they would do considerably more damage.  Heated cannon balls fell onto the store of gun powder and caused an explosion which burned up part of the living quarters.  From this perspective, a hot shot is someone who can make things happen.

                As our tour winds down, I look forward to sleeping on my own firm mattress which does not require a key and we only encounter bed bugs when one of us irritates the other!

No way! Way!

I ended my previous blog entry regarding turnpikes with a thought-provoking question from George Carlin:  Why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway?  For those of you who have lost sleep pondering this imponderable, rest assured you will receive a good night’s sleep after reading this blog  entry!  Part of my inspiration to pursue the history of “parkway” comes from a recent conversation with a friend whose job required that he research the history of parkways in New York State, and part comes from the amount of driving—on turnpikes, parkways, thruways, highways, by-ways, freeways, and driveways--we have done recently and will do soon.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHD) defines a driveway as “a private road that connects a house, garage, or other building with the street” and parkway as "a broad landscaped highway; often divided by a planted median strip.”  This definition gives very little information about a parkway, except that it should be pleasant to drive on if you like landscaping.  The idea of a scenic drive is appropriate to a parkway, and Google aided me in further refining the qualities of a “parkway.”

Parkways are found all around the United States.  Unlike turnpikes, they are “freeways,” that is, you do not have to pay a toll to drive on them (or to drive your cattle on them).  While parkways around the country were built for various reasons, they all share the quality of providing a scenic drive.  For an overview of parkways around the United States, visit History of Scenic Roads Program  compiled by the Federal Highway Administration.

At the turn of the 20^th Century, the advent of the automobile changed the way Americans approached leisure time.  For example, The Long Island Parkway System initially was built to provide scenic access to parks.  This system, which had its beginnings in the Bronx River Parkway, “was developed in part as a result of the burgeoning public parks and conservation movement, and the increasing availability and technological advances of the automobile,” according to the web site.

To a different purpose, the Blue Ridge Parkway was built as part of the New Deal’s effort to provide jobs in the Depression, in the process linking the Shenandoah National Park with the Great Smokey National Park.  Likewise, the Arroyo Seco Parkway, billed as oldest FREEWAY in the United States, provided jobs during the Depression while connecting Los Angeles and Pasadena, hardly a scenic purpose, some may argue.

As a Southerner, I would be remiss if I did not mention the Natchez Trace Parkway, described as “the most significant highway of the Old Southwest.”  It combines history with scenery.  Traveling through the homelands of three Native American nations--Natchez, Chicasaw, and Choctaw--it spans three states.

I will close with the parkway bearing my favorite name, The Queen of All Parkways, aka the Merritt Parkway. According to the Merritt Parkway Conservancy, the primary purpose of this parkway was to relieve traffic congestion while providing a scenic drive.

Parkways in their inception served a number of purposes, combining scenic travel with economic gain and history.  In today’s world, many parkways have fallen into disrepair or have been “overridden,” (as it were) by newer major roads.  Perhaps in a way, newer interstate highways have done for parkways what the advent of air conditioning did for porches.

Those of us of “a certain age” remember how crazy we thought the Jetsons were with their phones that allowed the users to see each other talk.  Today, Skype and web conferences are routine.  Who knows how soon it will be before the helicopter car becomes as common as Skyping.

LAGNIAPPE:  Different regions of the United States have local terms for many things.  In my last blog entry, I discussed “kill” as a term for “creek” in the New York State area.  I am including a usage note at the entry for “run” in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:

Our Living Language Traditional terms for "a small, fast-flowing stream" vary throughout the eastern United States especially and are enshrined in many place names. Speakers in the eastern part of the Lower North (including Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, and southern Pennsylvania) use the word run. Speakers in the Hudson Valley and Catskills, the Dutch settlement areas of New York State, may call such a stream a kill. Brook has come to be used throughout the Northeast. Southerners refer to a branch, and throughout the rural northern United States the term is often crick, a variant of creek.