Part of the Beginning

The year I can't recall; I must have been about five. Dad and I had just exited Stolfa's Hardware when a friend of Dad's greeted us. I don't recall his name; I don't even think we were introduced. As the two men chatted, I noticed the passersby. They were staring. They really couldn't help it. Of average height, Dad's friend had bulky shoulders, a long torso, and comparatively short legs. His shiny black hair was dressed in two braids interlaced with strips of bright green felt. An impressive figure. I'm not sure of his tribe - Chickasaw, probably. His dark eyes remained expressionless as he appeared to ignore the stares, but the slight twitching at the corners of his mouth betrayed his amusement. After a couple of minutes, he glanced down at me.

"Her name" he said to Dad, "her name.....Yuskatawkanuchi." And then he broke into peals of laughter, his shoulders shaking in merriment. He grasped Dad's hand in farewell and moved on down the sidewalk, still chortling.

By suppertime I had gathered enough courage to ask Mother and Dad what the name meant. They exchanged that sly, knowing smile I would later recognize as their secret code. Dad said, "The exact translation is a little complicated, but basically it means ' little stinkweed'." "Or 'little skunk cabbage' " added Mother.

(Dumb kid! You HAD to ask.)

Years later, I recounted the incident to my cousin Marilyn, who found the whole thing hugely amusing. "How do you spell it?" she asked. Who knew? Laboriously, we sounded it out and settled on the spelling shown above, with the primary accent on the third syllable and the secondary accent on the next to last syllable. "Why did you want to know?" I asked. "You'll see" she replied.

Less than a week later, a letter from Marilyn arrived. Instead of just dropping it in the mailbox, the postal carrier rang the bell. As it happened, I answered the door. "Yuh - Yuh- Yuh-" he stuttered. "Yuskatawkanuchi" I responded, rolling it trippingly from my tongue. "I am she." He stared. "My Indian name" I explained. Mouth agape, he handed me the letter. Marilyn's handwriting stretched from edge. The postman walked away, shaking his head and muttering.

The name became a special bond between my Dad and me. He usually shortened it to "Nooch" or "Noochie" - the way he spelled it years later in his treasured letters to me - and when I heard him say it I knew he had something special to share. So I knew that, although I may have been little stinkweed/skunk cbbage, to my Dad I was truly a flower.