Miami Homemaker's Name Comes Back With a Roar
It took a lot for people to finally get a Miami homemaker's name right -- it took a hurricane.
For years, Mrs. Van Wyck, a nice mom who is active in the First United Methodist Church of South Miami, had to correct people when they called her Jeannie, like the curvy character in the long-ago television hit "I Dream of Jeannie."
Hurricane Jeanne was named for Jeanne Van Wyck of Miami.
|
|
That was all wrong, she would say. But the mispronunciations persisted.
That is, they persisted until a tropical storm way out in the Caribbean got serious a couple of weeks ago.
The transformation of that tropical storm into a hurricane has burned the proper pronunciation of Mrs. Van Wyck's name into the collective consciousness of Florida.
Yes, her name is Jeanne.
And, yes, she is that Jeanne.
Jeanne Van Wyck is the inspiration for the fourth hurricane to hit Florida in a season. She lent her name decades ago to a friend, and frankly, she really doesn't regret it. Her friend -- Gilbert Clark -- happened to be a big shot meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center. He also happened to be the guy who submitted hurricane names.
Now Clark didn't get too creative with his name choices. He picked his wife and his three kids, and he picked his friend Jeanne and her two children. Being a hurricane didn't do much good for her daughter, Beryl.
"They said 'barrel' and 'burl'; they mispronounced it in so many ways," Jeanne Van Wyck said.
But Hurricane Jeanne did such a nice job for Homemaker Jeanne that she has an idea for the next storm season.
"Now I only have to get my last name right," she said. "It's Van WHYk, not Van WICK."
-- Manuel Roig-Franzia
Raise Your Right Paw and Bark. Animal Court Is Now in Session
Mischievous chickens, rambunctious dogs and unruly cats are not beyond the long arm of the law in California's Stanislaus County. Pet owners are being rounded up by court officials to face charges from failing to keep their pets on a leash to complaints about incessant barking and vicious animals, and they are being ordered to appear in Animal Court.
