Geographical oddities

We learned in our last session, class, that there was once a Farther Pomerania but there was never a Nearer Pomerania. Today we will learn about several other geographical oddities.

The country of Mongolia was formerly known as Outer Mongolia. There is no country called Inner Mongolia, but there is an Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China. The natives call it Öbür mongγol (in Mongolian cyrillic script: Өвөр Монгол) from the Mongolian öbür mongγol, where öbör can mean south, inner, front, bosom, and breast. I am not making this up.

There are both Outer Hebrides islands and Inner Hebrides islands off the coast of Scotland. The word is pronounced HEB-rih-deez, not HE-brides. HE-brides are what New York will soon be having plenty of, as the New York State Legislature legalized gay marriage just this week.

Here are the Outer Hebrides:

and here are the Inner Hebrides:

(Maps copyright by Wikipedia user Barryob, used by permission under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2)

I have decided not to show you any New York Hebrides.

In Marietta, Georgia, where I used to live, there is a Roswell Road and also a Lower Roswell Road. People refer to Roswell Road as Upper Roswell Road all the time to distinguish it from Lower Roswell Road, as though the word Lower in Lower Roswell Road did not distinguish it enough, but the words Upper Roswell Road do not appear on any map or street sign. In Cherokee County, Georgia, where I now live, there is a Union Hill Road and a Lower Union Hill Road, but not an Upper Union Hill Road. The people in Cherokee County, however, never refer to Union Hill Road as Upper Union Hill Road. In this respect, the people of Cherokee County have more smarts than the people of Marietta.

Another geographical oddity in Georgia is the naming of roads between towns. In Marietta, for example, there is a road called Canton Highway that goes toward Canton and in Canton there is a road called Marietta Highway that goes toward Marietta. They are two ends of the same road, but they do not meet. Instead, there is a middle stretch of the same road called Holly Springs Parkway that joins the two end sections together. This sort of phenomenon, with the exception of naming the middle section Holly Springs Parkway, happens all over north Georgia. Cumming Highway in Canton is called Canton Highway in Cumming. Dallas Highway in Marietta is called Marietta Highway in Dallas. This is all well and good, and even charming in a mundane, unimaginative way. But even though in Roswell the road to Alpharetta is called Alpharetta Highway, people in Alpharetta call their end of the road Atlanta Highway. Alpharettans just have to be different.

If I may be permitted to insert a personal anecdote, many years ago Mrs. RWP and I attended Mt. Paran, a large church in Atlanta. A few years later, because the church was growing, a second campus was purchased in Marietta and named “Mount Paran North.” Several years later, we began attending a church in Roswell and so did quite a few other people from the Atlanta church when gasoline prices began to climb and travel grew costly. Eventually our little church experienced enough growth to build a new, larger facility. On the dedication day of the new Roswell church, Dr. Paul L. Walker, the longtime senior pastor of Mt. Paran, was the main speaker. I was, as usual, playing the piano. As Dr. Walker arrived on the platform before the service began, he recognized me and was surprised to see so many friends from the old days. I couldn’t resist. “Just think of us as Mt. Paran Farther North,” I quipped. I hadn’t thought of that in years until putting together this post.

In his cartoon strip Li’l Abner, cartoonist Al Capp created a Lower Slobbovia but not an Upper Slobbovia. However, Lower Slobbovia was sometimes called Outer, Inner, Central, Upper, or Lowest Slobbovia. Here is the Slobbovian national anthem:

We are citizens of Slobbovia
(Oh, that this should be happening to us!)
We are giving you back to the Indians
(But they are refusing, of cuss!)

PTUI on you, Slobbovia!
We are hating your icebound coast
Of all the countries in the world
WE ARE HATING SLOBBOVIA MOST!!

But of all the soul singers in the world who sing about geographical places, we definitely are loving this one (2:48) most.

So ye take the High road, and I’ll take the Low road, and I’ll be in the Outer Hebrides, or possibly Alpharetta, afore ye.

From the round file, or Not every idea is a good idea

PREFACE

For the past two weeks I have been planning to start writing my novel, because if that idiot Billy Ray Barnwell can write one then it should be a snap for me. I even had the title all picked out, Finding Your Inner Fannie Flagg, but then I got to thinking how it is just wrong, wrong, wrong to choose a title before writing one single word of one’s novel. Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Now that I have actually started writing, I’m thinking of calling my book Fannie Flagg Is Alive And Well And Living In Santa Barbara, California.

I picked today, September 29, 2008, to begin my novel because it has been exactly nine months since the Republicans held their primary down in Florida to select delegates to their national convention this past summer, and the Democrats held their primary that day too although no delegates were involved because Florida was a bad boy or girl as the case may be and did something the national Democrats didn’t like at all so the big, bad, national Democrats turned Florida over their knee, figuratively speaking, and administered a good spanking, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, to Florida’s behind, the Democratic portion at least, with a wooden hairbrush or leather slipper or razor strop if there is still such a thing as a razor strop, now there’s a picture, but Florida Democrats went ahead and had their little primary anyway even though it didn’t matter in the least because any delegates they chose were not going to be seated at the national convention this past summer, except, of course, the national Democrats rethought the issue and decided that maybe a state with more than 20,000,000 people ought to be able to get to participate in choosing a presidential candidate after all, and then all was forgiven and the delegates were seated and life went on as though nothing happened, in other words, politics as usual in the Democratic party. I swear, sometimes the national Democratic party gets itself confused with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I don’t even want to think about politics just now because for one thing it makes my head hurt and for another the world will one day forget all about Mitt Romney and John McCain and Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee and John Edwards and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, to say nothing of Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, because other truly world-shaking events will eventually occur that will push the American elections right off the front pages, I mean, what if an undersea earthquake had occurred somewhere off the coast of Africa and had caused a big tsunami to come along and wipe out Florida the day before the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries? I mean, we can never really know what’s going to happen, can we? I mean, the world has already forgotten all about Dennis Kucinich and Fred Thompson and Sam Brownback, and there wasn’t even an earthquake or a tsunami. I mean, can you remember what you were doing a week before September 11th, 2001? Neither can I, so let me jump right into my novel without further ado because, as cartoonist Al Capp used to make L’il Abner or Mammy Yokum or some other character of his say, time’s a-wastin’.

CHAPTER 1