Carol’s Column

So, what's in a name? Ask the friendly Americans

I sat next to Bear on the plane to the United States of America. I'd just settled down to enjoy a glass of red wine with the delicious rubbery chicken and sawdust mashed potatoes when the guy on my left knocked my elbow causing the wine to spill over the lime-green travelling tracksuit I'd bought at the Rosebank fleamarket for R10,50.

It had been marked down because of the disparity in leg length which wasn't really obvious unless I stood still with my legs together.

And think about it, unless you're sitting or sleeping, you're always on the go which means only the sharpest-eyed observer would notice that the left leg of a lime-green tracksuit pant is seven centimetres shorter than its right companion.

“Gee, I'm so sorry,” said the chap responsible for the red wine stain spreading over my left thigh. “Call me Bear,” he added. Actually, at that moment, I thought of a couple of other less complimentary names to call him.

I established his name was Bear as in bear not bare. He had two brothers, one called River, the other Land and his sister was La Dawn.

“My parents are keen greens,” he added rather unnecessarily. Bear hailed from Tucson, Arizona, and was returning home to that city where he made his living as an installer of jacuzzis.

He was friendly and talkative and by the time I disembarked at Kennedy, we were almost related.

One shouldn't generalise, but Americans are loquacious and they do have unusual names. Take Lark, the cosmetic specialist who sold me a tube of lip balm for chapped and peeling lips.

“So where are you from?” she asked while offering me a choice between orange and avocado or juniper and persimmon lip ice. “Wow, Africa! Oh I know all about Africa,” she enthused and proceeded to give me a blow by blow account of The Lion King which she'd seen seven times.

Then there was Tad at the coffee shop. In between debating the merits of a short or tall cafe mocca or cappucino with either cinnamon or chocolate sprinkle I learned more about Tad.

He was working at the coffee shop part-time on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays he walked dogs and on Sundays sold custom-built false teeth to frequenters of his neighbourhood dental clinic.

Tupper, the lass at the bagel store up the road, was not named after the plastic utility containers we know so well in South Africa but after a great grandfather called William Tupp who had emigrated to the US from Yorkshire in the United Kingdom.

Pardee, Pepper and Parish manned the car wash, while in Wegmans, the supermarket, Sky sold me raspberry-flavoured cream cheese.

And talking supermarkets, never before have I seen such a selection of grocery items under one roof.

There were musical mops, seaweed facecloths – and shining apples in which you can see your face reflected. A guy called Cord who frequents the premises, the “applarium”, said these apples been put on a conveyor belt and sprayed with a thin layer of edible lacquer to protect them from bruising and to enhance their glow. So now you know.

Finally, as I write this, upon my nose is a Biological Pore Perfect, deep cleansing pad which will instantly clean all my nasal pores clogged from 22 hours of flying across the Atlantic. This was sold to me by Storm whose mother is named Sunny. And Sunny's profession in life is to inspect the sidewalks of Buffalo, New York, the town in which all these wonderfully named people live.

Ah, America, it's another country indeed.

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