Why Sam is Called Sam

In life, your name is your label, and indication of where you came from and hopefully where you are going to. In general labels are often a negative, especially when applied to a minority or person with an ability not quite the norm. Be that what it may, names, our label in life have meaning and a story.

Our youngest son, Samuel, 21 already(?) is on ‘the spectrum’, only partially verbal and yet exquisitely brilliant (he has been using Linux computers since he was about 4). In many ways, especially physically, he is a mini-Me. My wife chuckles seeing us walk down the street – the same posture, the same stride, the same arm movements, usually in time.

In other ways he reminds me of my Father.

Like Dad, Sam is a bit of a mechanical genius. My Dad was for a number of years a millwright at Elk Falls, maintaining and fixing the massive paper machines in the mill. Sam on the other hand, given a set of detailed instructions and large Lego kit, will have it assembled in a few minutes – KaBoom! Sam is my go-to ‘instruction reader’ when assembling yet another bit of ‘fun-furniture’ from Ikea. It is kind of cool assembling things knowing that the next nut, bolt or Swedish technology is ready to be handed over.

Sam has another skill that definitely reminds me of Dad. My Dad was always very fond of automobiles, especially old ones. For him a Sunday afternoon at a local Show and Shine was not to be missed. Or a chance to jump in the car and drive a scabillion miles just to see what was there. Sunday afternoons at Oyster Bay often involved loading as many of us as fit in the back seat of the Parisienne and heading out for a couple hours of cruising.

Like Dad, Sam loves automobiles, especially taking a drive just to see what was there. And Sam has another automobile skill that defies logic.

Whether we are walking down the street or hitting 110 Kmh on the 417, Sam can tell you the make, model and year of every car – passing in the other direction! Not just the make, model and year but he will also recognize and call out the license plate origin if from outside Ontario (Ontario is boring so he doesn’t bother)! Long ago I gave up trying to trip him up, it is impossible.

But I digress.

In my family we all have formal names and ‘family’ names. John is JL, Penny is Pen, Pamela is Pam or PJ, Doralynne is Dodie. Mine, thanks to my oldest sister, is Ig or Ignatz (I still have absolutely no idea how I got that name).

If you remember the day I was born, my Dad had just arrived home from a trip to Seattle and was enjoying a couple wobbly pops with the boys when someone told him he better get to the hospital (I was preemie so he probably figured there was no hurry). In those days, of course, men were not allowed into the birthing room. Instead he was handed a clipboard and asked to fill out the birth registration with a wobbly popped hand.

Thus it was that William Mark Law became officially Mark William Law, something my Mother never let him live down! In fact after they seperated my Mother would send out Christmas Cards from ‘Peggie, Dodie and Bill’!

My Father was embarrassed, so embarrassed that until just about the time they seperated in 1971 he never called me ‘Mark’ unless I was in deep doodoo or he really needed to get my attention.

Instead he called me… Sam.

For my first day of school he got me a smaller version of his black hip-roofed lunch bucket with a red label on the end that said ‘Sam Law’, which after some cajoling was relabelled ‘Mark Law’.

But I have always liked the name Sam. In many ways just hearing it reminds me of my Dad, the Sunday mornings in the basement fixing whatever or building a bookcase, watching him in his beloved greenhouse admiring the marrows, tomatoes and especially the green peppers.

Just under two years before Sam was born my Dad passed away, relatively young at 74, but worn out from many years of hard, hard work. So when Sam was born it was my wife who suggested Samuel, possibly in remembrance of my Dad and the hip-roofed lunch bucket, possibly not. But I do know she was thinking about me and my Dad. And I loved it!

So Sam it is, a living reminder of a man who was mechanically gifted and loved automobiles.

Just like Sam…