Dutchman

I was at the neighborhood hardware store this afternoon picking up some Christmas decorations at half price. I was in the checkout line bantering with the clerk (I go there often and know this clerk somewhat) about whether or not she would help me carry out what I had purchased. I don’t know exactly what I said, but must have butchered it some, because a man in the line behind me piped up and said, “Sounds like a Dutchman.” I smiled and told him that he was pretty close.

I’ve been accused by my wife of saying things in ways that tend to betray a part of my ancestry. It’s called Pennsylvania Dutch, I think, and beyond that I don’t know much. One or more of the readers of my blog who are related to me might be able to better talk about that ancestry and how it came to be known as Pennsylvania Dutch. I always thought it was more German than Dutch. But I’m not the expert.

One of the only lines I can recall that my mother used to say was, “It’s makin’ down wet,” when she wanted to say it was raining. I’m sorry to say that I can’t really think of any other phrases right now. I’ll probably be able to think of several after I publish this.

My Dad’s family was from the same ancestry as my Mother, and I’m sure they had several things they said similar to the “makin’ down wet” line. But Dad never carried most of them over, and we never really learned them from him. Other things, yes. And some of those “other things” are unmentionable here. He was a colorful man in some respects, to say the least.

What will we give to our descendants? What stays? What goes? What takes its place? It’s an ever-changing formula with an ever-different outcome. But that’s what, in part anyway, makes us the unique creatures we are.