Christopher Columbus, whose genocidal atrocities many Italian-Americans prefer to ignore.
Sometimes buses don’t come. Friday night, I was stuck at a bus stop and two buses in a row didn’t come.
I know it was the right schedule because the new schedule calls the Scotts Valley Transit Center the “Cavallaro Transit Center.” They changed the name to honor some guy named Cavallaro. They have a new plaque with his name on it outside the transit center, but I haven’t read it so I don’t know who he is. I presume he has something to do with local transit issues, but probably not. Likely he’s just some local schmuck whom some local official felt should have something named for him. So they spent at least $200 on a plaque, and more than that on changing every bus schedule in the county, and now people aren’t gonna know where on earth you're talking about when you tell them you need to catch a bus at the Cavallaro Center. (If they call it that.)
I also presume this guy’s dead but you never know about that. While the U.S. Postal Service and U.S. Treasury won't put you on stamps or coins unless you’re dead, government has no problem naming things after live people. Ronald Reagan was still alive when they renamed National Airport after him; and G.H.W. Bush Airport in Houston is named after the still-living former president. Gov. Schwarzenegger already has a stadium in Austria named for him; and Donald Trump has been naming everything he owns after himself… probably because he knows no one else will do it for him later.
Many of the buildings at Bethany University were named for still-living people. The always-closed Harrison Student Union (which I live above, popularly called “the Spot” because that’s what it was called before it was renamed) is named after Bethany’s still-living first African-American graduate Robert Harrison. (The rec center in it is named “Georgie’s” because a near-brain-dead Senate officer got his Harrisions mixed up.) And last Wednesday Don Popineau, for whom the tiny park in front of the chapel is named, briefly spoke in Craig Chapel (which is named for the school’s founders, who are dead). For most people, donate enough money and a campus will name stuff after you. Hence our administrative building, the Stowell Center; I think the Stowells are still alive.
But here’s the deal—people still won’t remember who the heck you were. Unless you were president of the United States, or otherwise internationally famous, you will lapse into obscurity and the only thing anyone will remember is the building with your name on it.
Which may not have the best connection with your name. Case in point would be Cordas C. Burnett Hall, named for a former Bethany president (and the father of one of my professors). Sad to say, none of the students knows Burnett the guy. Most are familiar with Burnett the hall, which is a sty. The hallways smell like feet and ass. The laundry room, which I have to use, is full of dust, lint, and old clothes scattered everywhere, and one of the dryers looks like a hamster exploded in it. The bathrooms are little cleaner than that of a public gym, and black mold is growing in one of the smaller bathrooms. The lounges have the aroma of a thousand sweaty men. In all my time at Bethany I have been insanely fortunate to not have to live there, because I barely have the patience for my own halls’ funk. (To be fair, it’s better than Sac State's dorms. But not by much.)
Thus when people say “Burnett” to Bethany alumni, we don’t think of President Burnett and all he did for this campus. We think of the nastiest hall on it. When people say “Burnett sucks!” they obviously aren't talking about Burnett the man. Sadly, they’re never talking about Burnett the man.
And this is the same with other places I know. Junior high and high schools, libraries and rec centers, streets and bridges and freeways, and so forth. All in memory of someone we have no memory of; and any memories we would have of them are clouded by the memories we have of the buildings and institutions that aren’t always worth remembering.
This is why I want nothing named after me. NOTHING. I don’t mind if children are named after me, but bear in mind that Kent will become their names and they won’t ever think of me when they’re called by it. But buildings?—no one will remember me by them. Statues?—I don’t need to become a pigeon toilet. Parks?—“My kid got crippled for life after she fell off the swings at Leslie.” Roads?—“Ten-car pileup on the Leslie Freeway.” No, no, no. Nothing. It’s not an honor. All it means is my name will live on—and be used in vain.