Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Jan. 9, 2012

ADD screws up yet another column

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I am thinking of a McCutcheon cartoon, drawn for the Chicago Tribune in the early 1900s. It shows a young lad sitting at his desk in an old one-room schoolhouse, gazing longingly out the window at the clouds and the birds and possibly a dog or two. Boys often did that back then, due to what had not yet been recognized as a disorder.

I have this theory. Oh yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “He has hundreds of theories, so what else is new?” Well, one of my theories is that, given the law of averages, if a person has enough theories, some of them will hold water. And I believe this next one is full of it. Water, that is.

Here it is: Most people over 55 suffered from ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) as children, but didn’t know it. That’s because child psychologists in those bygone days hadn’t invented the disorder yet. Many of us still have the problem.

For example, last week I received an email from Larry Spickler, an old college buddy. It contained a list of words, published by Detroit’s Wayne State University, which should be used more often. The words, that is. The article says: “The University’s Word Warrior’s series promotes words that are ‘Some of the English language’s most expressive–yet regrettably neglected.’”

Now, a normal person without ADD who decided to write a column about words that the Wayne State University’s Word Warrior Series felt were neglected would probably a) sit down at his keyboard, b) stare at it for awhile, and then c) get down to business.

Here’s how an ADD columnist operates:


• First, tries to remember the keyboard formula for making those little black dots they call bullets. He likes the bullets.


• Then he remembers Wayne State, and wonders how Wayne State University got its name. This thought leads to:


• There’s obviously no such state as “Wayne,” so it was probably named after Wayne County, Michigan, which, through no fault of its own, is where Detroit is located. So what?


• So who or what was Wayne County, Michigan named after?


• He has a thought, which involves Cheetos and–AHA–the name “Mad” Anthony Wayne.


• Sure enough, that’s the guy. But why did they call the famous Revolutionary War General “Mad” Anthony? Was it because he had trouble with anger management? No, it was because he was considered a bit looney.


• In what sense? Well, it was probably genetic. His father was known as Slightly Unhinged Ambrose Wayne, and his grandfather was DeWayne Wayne of Ye Olde Troubled Brain. In 1794 General Wayne was called back into active duty by President Washington to help establish the Northwest Territory, which in those days, sadly enough, was composed of Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. Wayne led his troops into the Battle of Fallen Timbers, where they completely and decisively, once and for all, roundly defeated some six dozen oaks and poplars which had been blown over by a recent storm. They also routed two squirrels and a covey of quail. Wayne himself personally captured a moderately large bush and a hornets’ nest. All of this took place near present day Toledo. This leads your ADD columnist to:


• In 1796, on his way back from Fort Detroit to Pennsylvania, Mad Anthony Wayne died of a goat-related illness. Sorry, that should read “gout-related” illness. He was buried near Erie, Pennsylvania. Which leads to the best part of the Mad Anthony Wayne story:


• In 1809 Wayne’s body was disinterred and all the flesh was boiled off. The remaining bones, or all of them that would fit into two saddlebags, were relocated some 400 miles to the southeast in the family burial plot in Radnor, Pennsylvania. According to legend, several bones were lost along the way, and now every January 1 the ghost of Mad Anthony Wayne travels down old U.S. Highway 322, looking for his bones. With good traffic conditions, traveling at 55 mph, and allowing for four rest stops, he can make the trip in less than nine hours.


• If you include Michigan, there are 15 states with Wayne Counties. There are also dozens of cities, towns, schools, restaurants, tire dealerships, movie theaters, forests, highways, bridges, toll booths, and fictional characters named Wayne, including Bruce Wayne, also known as Batman. And that Wayne Newton guy. And there is Fort Wayne, Indiana, which is home to the Mad Anthony Brewing Company.


• Which, by the time your ADD columnist has absorbed all of that Mad Anthony Wayne information, leaves almost no space for any of those neglected words, but here are a few:


1. ERSTWHILE - Erstwhile means “in the past,” as in: “I smoked erstwhile, but I give it up last month due to my lungs is bad.”


2. PENULTIMATE - This means “next to last,” as in: “Them Paper Mates was alright, and them Bics was good too, but when in come to ball points, that there Parker T-Ball Jotter which could write over butter was the penultimate. And if they still made buttered paper, I’d be using it today ruther than this old felt tip thing.”


3. SUPERCILIOUS - Supercilious means “disdainful,” as in: “Ol’ Jerry Lewis was cilious, but that there Jim Carrey is supercilious.”


4. TRUCKLE - I didn’t have to look this one up. It may be used as a contraction, as in “My truckle do 110 in top gear without no trouble at all.” Or it may be used as a verb, as in “We used a diesel rig to truck our furniture from California, but only our little Dodge Dakota to truckle them boxes to the landfill.”


5. COMMODIOUS - If this one wasn’t on the Wayne State list, it should’ve been. It means “roomy,” as in: “Being as how there was fourteen stalls in that Ladies room, Irma told Leon she hadn’t never seen nothing quite so dang commodious.”


If I hadn’t been distracted by all of that Wayne stuff, this would have been an excellent opportunity to display some of the other twenty-dollar words I’ve learned.