Carvers and McNairs: The Name Game Rolls On

Discussing Decatur, I mentioned recently there might be some school shootings with the opening of the new academic year. Decatur weirdness continues, as AWG has alerted me.

But shootings are in our radar for now, for some school districts began last week. For most, the school year will officially start this Wednesday, September 3.

What did occur is that a shooting did take place on August 30 - exactly ten days after the Decatur event. What it highlighted, for our twilight language purposes, was an intriguing circular "coincidence" – namewise.

Christopher Lamont Richardson Jr. was arrested last Friday and charged with carrying a concealed weapon, possession of firearm on school property, assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, and discharging a firearm within city limits. (Please note, the alleged gunman's middle name is Lamont and that means "law man.")

Officers responded to a report of a shooting of one student by another, suspect Richardson, around 2:30 p.m. August 30, at Carver High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Police say the school had been conducting a fire drill when a school resource officer heard shots fired.

A 15-year-old student was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries.

Now some name games from this most recent event link to the Decatur drama.

The high school name – Carver – links to the previous school incident in Decatur, Georgia. (Carver means sculptor or one who carves, quite naturally.)

The August 20th incident's Decatur high school name, you will recall, was the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy.

(McNair is an Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Iain Uidhir "son of sallow John." This form is associated mainly with Ross-shire. Another meaning comes from the Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac an Oighre "son of the heir.")

The late AfricanAmerican astronaut Ronald E. McNair attended Carver High School, in Lake City, South Carolina. He graduated as the valedictorian of his class. Carver High School became Lake City Junior High School when integration occurred and students of Carver High and J. Paul Truluck High combined into Lake City High. The school later became Ronald E. McNair Junior High to honor the astronaut, and then later the student body changed and it was renamed Ronald E. McNair Middle School.

The 1948 stamp honoring Carver.

These schools, like many historical black/AfricanAmerican schools in the American South, were or are named after George Washington Carver. Carver (alive by January 1864 – deceased on January 5, 1943), was an AfricanAmerican scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor. The exact day and year of his birth are unknown; he is believed to have been born into slavery in Missouri in January 1864. George Washington Carver reputedly discovered three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more for soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes.

As you can see, this tale of three schools overlap in their journeys among the Carvers and McNairs. What all this means, of course, lies beyond perhaps even human understanding.

That Michael Brandon Hill (the shooter in the recent Decatur event) might have intertwined with the power names of Jim Brandon of Rebirth of Pan fame, of course, was merely a "coincidence."

(Thanks to Rob S. for an idea.)

Decatur Again: School Shooting Season Begins

Decatur, Georgia, was in the news a week ago. A school shooting nearly became deadly, and, I speculate because of the publicity about it, a workplace shooting occurred over the weekend.

Mass shootings follow a known pattern - another form of school, business-related, or mass violence usually comes within days of a well-publicized event - then more routinely another shooting happens in a week, two weeks, a month, and a year. It doesn't always take place with such regularity, but it often does.

The other predictor of future shootings is the copycat effect that comes into play after an end of the school year outburst. It feels like a Newtown bounce this fall may happen; I hope not but such a possibility is worthy of being on our radar.

Awareness is a key. People protecting others in schools, colleges, malls, churches, workplaces, and similar locations need to be alert. We are entering a dangerous "red zone" time of year. 

The Rebirth of Pan (1st edition, Firebird Press, 1983)

Mysterious America (1st edition cover, Faber & Faber, 1983)

Decatur again. Yes. We are use to Decatur in the weird news. Jim Brandon pointed out "Decatur" as a "power name" in his The Rebirth of Pan in 1983, and I wrote about it as part of the "Name Game" in Mysterious America, also first in 1983.

First described as "Atlanta-area," the "almost deadly" school shooting happening last Tuesday, August 20, 2013, occurred at Decatur, Georgia's Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy. The elementary school was named for the second AfricanAmerican astronaut, who died aboard the Challenger, the space shuttle that exploded after takeoff on January 28, 1986.

Michael Brandon Hill, 20, opened fire in the school, using an AK-47, to six bullets in the floor of the office. But as he was calmed down by school bookkeeper Antoinette Tuff, who spoke to Hill while on the phone with the 911 operator. She talked him into surrendering, and the publicity was heightened when President Obama called her a "hero."

Investigator T.L. Wortham of the DeKalb County Sheriff Department's Fugitive Unit told the media that as officers were apprehending the suspect, Hill said, "I'm sorry, I'm off my meds." Several weapons were seized, Wortham said.

Hill took a photo of himself (a "selfie") with an AK 47-style rifle and packed up nearly 500 rounds of ammunition — enough to shoot more than half the school's students - police later said.

After the Decatur incident, another shooting - with six shot - occurred on Saturday, August 25, 2013, in Lake Butler, Florida. The alleged shooter, Hubert Allen Jr., 72, was reported dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after a “complete shooting rampage” at Pritchett Trucking. The owner of Pritchett Trucking and the farm, Rolling Oaks, Marvin Pritchett, 80, was first killed. Allen then drove to a local bar where he shot and killed Romando Gonzales Delgado, 28, and then killed himself. The gunman was identified as the step-grandfather of Buffalo Bills running back C.J. Spiller.

Decatur, Georgia, has had its brushes with infamy in the recent past.

In June 5, 2012, a fight lead to a stabbing Decatur’s Columbia High School. Two days later, on Thursday, June 7, 2012, a gun was brought to the DeKalb County school after stabbing incident. And then on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012, loaded guns were seized at two area high schools.

Mark David Chapman, the assassin of Beatle John Lennon, attended Decatur, Georgia's Columbia High School from 1971-1975. (His high school photograph is at top.)

Decatur, Illinois's old Transfer Station use to be located near Lincoln Square, named after the assassinated Illinois president.

My old hometown’s name, Decatur, (of Decatur, Illinois) has a Fortean mystique and synchromysticism about it that has created all kinds of mojo.

Several locations are named "Decatur" across the United States of America.

Such sites are named after the War of 1812′s Navy hero, Stephen Decatur, who fought against the Barbary pirates. Decatur at one time conducted tests in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey in 1804, and fired on the Jersey Devil. The records say that Stephen Decatur identified the winged creature as a “devil” – pale in color, with leathery bat-like wings. Decatur perforated one of the thing’s wings with a fired cannonball, but it seemed unfazed, which disturbed everybody who was there at the time. It flew off.

The word decatur (French in origin) is loosely translated as “dweller at the sign of the cat,” and Native Americans who lived in the area that is now Central Illinois had numerous stories of encounters with large dark predatory cats, which are still sighted in the area to this very day.

Stephen Decatur, a Masonic figure of some noteworthiness, is responsible, as well, for the Stephen Decatur House in Washington D.C., which is located on Lafayette Square.

Should we be surprised if an outburst of new violence occurs in the wake of the copycat effect recoil from Newtown? Will it "pick" a location with a "power name"?

How can the next wave be prevented? Certainly, ignoring the patterns of the past is not wise.