Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Town Lake ? Nope, It's Another LBJ

The Austin-American Spaceman reports that the Austin City Council is going to name Town Lake in Austin "Lady Bird Lake" in honor of recently deceased First Lady Lady-Bird Johnson at its meeting tomorrow. Austin calendar, stationery, map and poster-makers are no doubt ordering champagne tonight.
I'm sure Mrs. Johnson, a tireless preservationist, and worker for a better environment -- including the improvement of Town Lake -- deserves the honor. Still, I'm underwhelmed by the idea. Back in the bad old days, I enjoyed too many afternoons at Town Lake to get used to a new name.
In general, El Jefe, true to his role of old-stickimus maximus, disapproves of renaming things no matter how worthy the honoree, or how urgent the wishes of the new owners. (Here in Ciudad El Jefe, I still often refer to the former Home of the Rockets as the Summit, despite at least two nomenclature changes).
Occasional exceptions are okay, for, say, George Washington or something, but we've been out of the George Washington production business for a long time.
And yes, no doubt lookers searching long enough could find some inconsistency in my practices, but consistency's never bothered me, too much.

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