I love Paris in the springtime
I love Paris in the fall
I love Paris in the winter, when it drizzles
I love Paris in the summer, when it sizzles
I love Paris every moment
Every moment of the year
I love Paris! Why, oh, why do I love Paris?
Because my love is here.
I have never been to Paris and my love is not now and never has been there. "I Love Paris" was followed almost immediately by another old song, as though someone somewhere was dropping quarters into a jukebox:
A foggy day in London town
It had me up, it had me down
I viewed the morning with alarm
The British Museum had lost its charm
How long, I wondered, could this thing last?
But the age of miracles hadn't passed
For suddenly I saw you there
And in foggy London town the sun was shining everywhere.
I have been to London only once, in March 1969, and it was not foggy.
I didn't tell you these things to impress you concerning my powers of recall. My memory is actually not so impressive. As a matter of fact, sometimes I can't remember things that are very important. What I remember, I remember. What I do not, I do not. What I know nothing at all about would fill libraries. Stadiums. Continents.
Let's move on.
What if the song "Gary, Indiana" that little Ronnie Howard sang in The Music Man were about another city? What if he had sung "Kansas City, Kansas" or "Charleston, West Virginia" or "Kodiak, Alaska" or "St. Cloud, Minnesota" or "Helena, Montana" or "Hannibal, Missouri" or "Waxahachie, Texas"?
In the overall scheme of things, it wouldn't make any difference at all except that Professor Howard Hill's encounter with Marian the librarian might have occurred somewhere else than right there in River City.
Please note that when you say "Waxahachie, Texas" the first syllable should not rhyme with "tax" and if it does you are saying it wrong. When you say "Waxahachie, Texas" the first syllable should rhyme with "hawks". I know this because I grew up in the town of Mansfield, just a few miles from Waxahachie. Let it further be noted that there is no 'T' in Waxahachie; it is not Waxahatchie. On second thought, maybe there should be a 'T' in Waxahachie because here's what a certain online encyclopedia that shall remain nameless has to say about the etymology of Waxahachie:
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Some sources state that the name means "cow" or "buffalo" in an unspecified Native American language. One possible Native American origin is the Alabama language, originally spoken in the area of Alabama around Waxahatchee Creek by the Alabama-Coushatta people, who had migrated by the 1850s to eastern Texas. In the Alabama language, waakasi hachi means "calf's tail" (the Alabama word waaka being a loan from Spanish vaca).
That there is a Waxahatchee Creek near present-day Shelby, Alabama, suggests that Waxahachie shares the same name etymology. Many place names in Texas and Oklahoma have their origins in the Southeastern United States, largely due to forced removal of various southeastern Indian tribes. The area in central Alabama that includes Waxahatchee Creek was for hundreds of years the home of the Upper Creek moiety of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Again, this would suggest a Muscogee Creek-language origin of Waxahachie. "Waxahachie", therefore, may be an anglicized pronunciation of the Muscogee compound word wakvhvce from the Muscogee words wakv (meaning "cow" derived from the Spanish vaca) and the Muscogee word hvcce (meaning "river" or "creek").
A second etymology that has been suggested for the name is insisted on by speakers of Wichita, the language of the tribe that used to live in the area, but now lives mostly around Anadarko, Oklahoma. Wichita people claim the name comes from their word waks'ahe:ts'i . It means "fat wildcat".
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I am suddenly reminded that 30 years ago I purchased some land that I still own here in northern Georgia at a place called Wauka Mountain and the locals told me at the time that Wauka meant "low-lying cow". Maybe that is connected to Waxahachine in some way.
As Mr. Spock used to say on Star Trek, "Fascinating!"
Perhaps you have never said "Waxahachie, Texas" and, with God being your Helper, you never will.
I have just one thing to say about that.
It takes all kinds.
I am sure of one thing. Just as the Bible tells us nothing at all about cable television, Greek mythology tells us nothing at all about Waxahachie, Texas or why it is called The Gingerbread City.
Fot that matter, it doesn't tell us why Smyrna, Georgia, is called The Jonquil City either, but that is a topic for another day.
If this post of mine doesn't make sense to you, why should today be any different?
