(being a collection of anecdotes that are not bloggity enough to merit their own entry)

That big red brick house a couple of blocks east of the Capitol is being given a new name by some political observers.  You know, the Executive Mansion?

Or, as they call it now, the Parsonage?

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Jut shootin’ the breeze with some friends the other day when the talk turned to politics. This was back before the governor resigned and before the separation of children at the southern border became a dominant issue in the news.

One of the participants at the table suggested a way President Trump could get congressional approval of the money he wants to build a border wall. The answer, said the keen observer to my right was, “Since he promised in his campaign and has said repeatedly since his election that Mexico would pay for the wall, why doesn’t Congress agree to let him have that money—-as soon as the President of Mexico transfers it to the United States Treasury?  He keeps his campaign promise; money isn’t taken away from other programs; and congress can move on to other things.”

There were several noticeable nods of agreement from the folks at the table who, by the way, were from various parts of the political spectrum.

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One of the joys of the tedious hours of searching through old newspapers for one article or even one line of one story for an article or a book is the little surprises that pop up.  Here’s one of those little surprises, a story about why husbands should let their wives know they’re appreciated.

University Missourian (before it became The Columbia Missourian), Thursday, September 24, 1914:  LEAVES HIM A BED AND ROOM.

She evidently was tired of supporting her husband—was Mrs. Anna Hickam, who died at her home six miles southwest of Columbia day before yesterday.  Anyway, her will reads like it.  Here is what it says:

“I have contributed largely to the support of my husband for a number of years, and I now give to him the bed-stead, bed and bedding now used by him in my home, and a room in the frame house just south of my residence so long as he desires to occupy the same, feeling that he has already received his full share of my property, and as he draws a pension from the government he should be able to take care of himself.”

Mrs. Hickam left all of her property to her daughter, Mary E. Morris.”

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There are at least three women named “Nancy” at the YMCA where your correspondent goes three times a week to remain fit, a place where one of the computer screens says, “You’re only one workout away from a good mood”—and I agree that I was in a better mood before my first workout.  I am married to a Nancy.  Two other fellows I talked to at the “Y” have wives named Nancy.

The Nancy inundation has led yours truly to see if all of these ladies are from a generation where Nancy was one of the most popular names for new babies.  Nancy, by the way, is a diminutive of the Hebrew “Ann,” a word for “Grace,” according to one source.  So if you know of anybody named Nancy Grace, you know a walking redundancy.

Well, it turns out that Nancy suddenly became a very popular name in the 1930s.  It cracked the top ten in popular girls’ names in 1934, was seventh from 1944-49, topped out at number 6 on the charts in 1950 and then started a decline that saw it fall from the top ten in 1956.  The Behind the Name website says Nancy was the 900^th most popular name for girls in 2016.

The Social Security Administration says there were 18,303 babies named Nancy per each million baby names in 1947, more than ten times the number in 1909.  But you won’t find many new Nancys now.  The rate dropped to 80 per million last year.

So, yes, all those Nancys (Nancies?) are part of the twenty-year long Nancy explosion.

Grace be unto all of them.