As I drove to Brookings this week I heard MPR play a recording by Van Cliburn. I remembered my confusion, as a child, regarding his name. I could never figure out why no one ever mentioned his first name. My confusion stemmed from growing up in an area heavily populated by Dutch immigrants. There were Vanden Hoeks, Van Neuenhuizens, Van Roekels, etc, so I thought Van Cliburn was his full last name. Imagine my surprise when I realized Van was his first name and he wasn’t Dutch!
This memory triggered another language based misunderstanding regarding Offenbach. In one of my first piano books I had a very simple piece written by Offenbach, but I didn’t know that was a formal name. I thought it was a German word that meant that you had to stand up when you played the piece, getting “Off the bench or off your backside”. I remember my piano teacher trying not to laugh when I explained my reasoning for why I stood up to play the piece.
A few weeks ago I was complaining to my daughter in law about my dislike for my exercise class, but how it was helping me improve my strength and stamina. Grandson was eying the Tylenol bottle at the time, and asked why, if I took Tylenol and it said “extra strength” did I even go to my class, since the Tylenol would give me extra strength. We explained it was the Tylenol that was strong, but it didn’t make me strong.
I think my favorite childhood misunderstanding was that held by a good friend from college. He was an accomplished oboe player from a small town in Eastern ND. The summer after he graduated from high school he travelled to Europe with a concert band from the International Music Camp (located on the ND/Canadian border). They played a concert in Washington, DC before heading overseas. He told me his confusion hearing the length of time the flight to Europe would take from DC, because it seemed so short, and his embarrassment realizing that his entire life he thought Washington, DC was in Washington State, hence the shorter travel time!
Any memorable childhood misunderstandings?
Trail Baboon 
Because I married a woman from West Michigan (I’m from Los Angeles), when retirement drew near, we landed in Holland, MI. During our first year here, I was getting used to various “Dutch-inflected” surnames. Sometimes there was confusion. Like at a restaurant popular with older folks that had a sign near some parking places that read “Van Accessible”, and a furniture store named after the owner, “Art Van Furniture”. Eventually I sorted that out.
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I’m sure there were many but the one that stands out in my mind is kleig (sp?) lights. When I was growing up, every now and then someone would have kleig lights going either the opening of a new movie or a big sale on their car lot where they wanted to attract attention at night. I was not a big UFO gal or into aliens or spaceships when I was a kid, but for some reason, I absolutely thought when I saw kleig lights in the sky that it was alien spaceships coming to land. And it wasn’t a frightful thing, it seemed like an ordinary occurrence to me. Very weird looking back on it. And of course I haven’t seen kleig lights for decades now. Do people even do these anymore? Maybe in Hollywood?
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