- Ooops!
It never ceases to amaze me – especially when we are traveling far from home – that so many people have heard of Oysterville. And, often, not just heard of our little village, but have actually been here, perhaps more than once. However, given that the guest book in the Oysterville Church gets signed by ten to twenty thousand visitors a year, I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that we are ‘known’ out there in the world.
But what amazes me even more is how unknown we are closer to home. Like right here on the peninsula! I’ve never gotten over the fellow who shingled our lower roof eight or nine years ago. He was forty years old, had grown up here ‘at the beach’ and had never been farther away than Astoria. (Except when he was in rehab.) Before our roofing job, he had not, in all his forty years, been to Oysterville, just seventeen short miles from where he had grown up and still lived!
And then there’s the spelling problem. Many are the times that people have asked me, “Now how do you spell that? Is it with an ‘o-y’ or an ‘o-i’ or…?”
“Spell it just like oyster” is what I want to say, but the teacher part of me does recognize that not everyone is familiar with our famed bivalves, nor is everyone good at spelling. So I carefully parse it out.
For my surprise birthday party, Nyel had ordered a cake from a local establishment we know and love. He talked to the owner about what he’d like on the cake – something that reflected my “Mrs. Stevens’ ABCs” books, perhaps. I don’t know if he reviewed the spelling of my name – probably not, for we are old friends and good customers.
But it never occurred to him (and probably not to the owner) that the cake decorator wouldn’t know how to spell Oysterville. Without the ‘y’ it is another place entirely. No ‘y,’ no ‘oy’ sound – just a short ‘o’ (the teacher, again) – and a 3,000 mile difference in location.
A number of years ago Nyel and I spent a few hours in Osterville, Massachusetts on Cape Cod – a charming place to visit, but…
The cake, of course, was up to the usual delicious standard, spelling or no spelling. One more fun memory to look back on! One more Oysterville story to tell!
Sydney, happy birfday! I wuv you!
-Marilyn
Oh dear. And that reminds me. I was at the post office sending you a package when I had to spell your last name without my address book in hand. We’ve been friends for about 13 years, but I couldn’t remember if your last name was with a v or a ph. (I do have your first name spelling memorized.) That’s why I spelled it different ways in different places. Now I’ll remember it’s like Stevens Pass. (And another good spelling story I’ll share — I just learned this yesterday while looking up recipes on Epicurious.com for a St. Patrick’s Day dinner. “Patty” is the feminine nickname for Patricia, and “Paddy” is the masculine nickname for Patrick. So friends don’t let friends spell it “St. Patty’s Day!) (Oh, don’t get me started on spelling stories…I just realized I could write several more!)
Do they still even teach reading that way?
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and I still remember the penmanship cards running across the top of our elementary school room walls.
Yes to both the question and the comment — or I should say that when I retired ten years ago (and for the 39 years previous to that) phonics was a HUGE part of primary reading instruction. And those alphabet cards still ran around the room – in manuscript for 1st and 2nd grade and in cursive for 3rd grade and up. I understand that “they” are going to stop teaching cursive now, the thought being that with the use of computers, cursive won’t be needed. So, the historian in me asks, “Who in future years will ‘translate’ all the old letters and documents written in beautiful Spencerian script that are the treasures of our history archives?
I’m glad the cake was good, Sydney and don’t feel too bad. When Gabriel was baptized we had a big cake that said, “Our Angle Gabriel” instead of “Our Angel Gabriel.” Oh well. The cake was good that time, too.