On Names and a Purity of Purpose
My mother is a great believer in the power of names. She and my father, though devout Christians, are Hippies that never grew up. A cousin told them that at a funeral, and they were delighted. My family used the cloak of their youthful beliefs to filter through some fey practices and customs that Southern Oklahoma Christianity was unprepared to accept. There was a tarot deck hidden in a desk drawer that I was never allowed to touch. My father refuses to wear shirts of a certain color, green, because he has a bad feeling about them. My grandmother, his mother, came from people who lived in camps, played the fiddle every night, and never stopped traveling. My mother believes in the power of names for her children. She had several books, from the popular culture of the late 1980s. She named my brother for both of his grandfathers, a Manly Thresher. For me, they decided they didn’t need to honor any ancestors. Daug...

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