From an occasional series, “It made Me Think,” from 2015.

I woke up in the middle of the night on June 12, 2015 and thought to myself, “After I go, who will know that my father, Louis Rosenblatt, born in Warsaw, Poland on April 1, 1920 (or possibly 1919, it’s a long story) had no middle name?” 

This minor element of my father’s life never bothered him, never bothered my Mom, and at best was a minor point to my brothers and me.  And in fact, it was not much more of a big deal to me until this particular morning.  In fact, Sara’s father, Harry Simmons had no middle name either.  I made a mental note to remind daughters Kathryn and Elizabeth about their paternal grandfather and then went back to sleep.

Yes, that’s the type of emotional depth with which I’ve been blessed.  You may have witnessed it, in fact, and in which case, YOU’RE blessed, but don’t expect me to tell you to have a blessed day any time soon.  And if you DO expect that to happen, start waiting in three … two … one … N-O-W …

During the day however, I thought a bit more about this middle name thing as I was riding my bike around and around and around Prospect Park and listened to Surf City (the band) on my personal audio device.  I recalled that important Romans gave middle names to their important children as a way to say, “Hey. Look how important I am and look how important my issue is!  Or are!”

Jews throughout history all had the same middle name, Ben.  And then after the Fall of Rome, few people had middle names.  During the Renaissance, middle names were once again used to suggest importance, wealth and status.  And whether you pronounce Renaissance as REH-nuh-sahnce or reh-NAY-sahnce, you can see why a middle name meant something.  It’s an inexpensive testament to your importance!  Hell, it wasn’t until late in the eighteenth century that Western European Jews had family names, let alone middle names!  Before then, it was Mark, ben (son of) Louis, or in my case, Moshe ben Leib.  Austria under Emperor Joseph II was the first country to require recognizable family names in 1787.  Why, you ask?  For all the usual reasons, but primarily for documenting citizens in newly emerging countries for two purposes: taxation, all the time, and conscription, when necessary.

And over the next 175 years, middle names became common once again.  In my own family history, my parents gave each of their three children middle names (Laurence, Reed and Allen, to the three of us, in order of age) that would permit us to drop our surname (Rosenblatt) the next time the Nazis came a-callin’ to dominate the world.  Pretty funny, huh?  Not so funny then, however, six years after the end of WWII, and at a time when the full story of the Holocaust had yet to be known. And not so funny in 2023, come to think of it.

Earlier this same week, I discovered that my primary care physician, a doc I really like, has the same middle name that I have.  I can’t wait to bring this coincidence to his attention.  And it occurred to me — while I was riding my bike in the park, and like I mentioned earlier — listening to a great Australian band, Surf City, whose 2015 album, JEKYLL ISLAND, is the best thing that was released in 2015. 

Take a listen to the song, Spec City, from JEKYLL ISLAND. Go ahead.  I’ll wait …

As I was saying, it occurred to me while I was riding my bike around Prospect Park that my primary care physician, who has the same middle name as I do, Laurence, may also have a Dad with no middle name!  What are the chances?

It also occurred to me that when I check out, and by check out, you know what I mean, that this knowledge of my father’s no-middle-name is gone forever, as will be my joy in using “None” as my father’s middle name in computer-based security questions.  By the way, I pronounce None as NOH-nee, which is the way that Noni, one of the longstanding service techs at my former Nissan dealer in Sheepshead Bay, pronounces his nickname, but that’s another story.

On a completely different subject, for those of you who recall following the escape of two convicts from an upstate New York prison (the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora) in 2015, there were reports that revealed a prison worker aided the escape, and in fact had planned to act as a driver for the get-out-of-town part of the breakout, but then reconsidered.  Instead the accomplice checked into an area hospital with a real or imaginary panic attack.  Clearly, the convicts had a back-up escape plan (that didn’t involve this accomplice) because the pair were not apprehended for weeks, which brings up the term “at large.”

“At large” means, of course, “at liberty,” but I’m not certain how many people understand this, and especially so out of context.  It reminds me of the story about the 4’11” mentalist who broke out of a Manhattan prison, and for whom the police put out a “short medium at large” APB.  Even more quaint is the contemporary news use of the term, “cold feet,” which was the way that an anonymous police source described the aforementioned accomplice’s reconsideration of her involvement in this 2015 upstate NY get-out-of-prison plan: this accomplice had “cold feet.”  The accomplice didn’t have a “change of mind” or “thought better of” her involvement or even “had second thoughts.”  The accomplice had “cold feet.”  I heard this term more in 2015 since Edward G. Robinson stopped doing gangster movies.  Sure, within context, people can figure out what it means, but still.

So I went to Etymology Online (http://www.etymonline.com/) to look up the origins of “cold feet.”  Before I searched, I guessed William Shakespeare as the first user, which is as good a guess for poetic terms and phrases as Benjamin Franklin is for aphorisms.  And a h/t to a great journalist here, Gil Longin, who inspired me to look up “cold feet.”  It turns out that “cold feet” was introduced to the English language by a contemporary of Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, in Volpone, in 1605.  I would check out the term in greater depth, but when it comes to reading Shakespeare’s contemporaries — like Jonson and Christopher Marlowe — I must admit, I have … ahem … cold feet.