The Upstory

So far it seems that I am the first RaMar anyone has ever met.

After an introduction someone will circle back and ask, “What did you say your name is?” And then ask me to spell it.

Sometimes that leads to the question of whether I know my name is a palindrome. (Yes, I do. Spelled the same way forward and backwards.) But, the more common question is, “Does it mean something?”

Yes, it means I had an unconventional mother.

In her day everyone was naming their baby girls Linda, Debbie, Cindy, Sue, and Kathy. Although I remember one girl named Corliss and another named Ardith, who also spent a fair amount of time explaining and spelling.

But Mom, who was named Sarah after her mother, Sarah, definitely was going to break that mold and go for something completely different. Different was part of Mom’s DNA. After all, this was a woman who thought nothing of serving stir-fry, rice, and egg rolls for Thanksgiving dinner.

Thus, Sarah the Unorthodox was in the market for a name no one else was using in the 1950s (or in any other decade as it turned out, despite my best efforts over the years to encourage pregnant friends to name their future child “RaMar”).

But wait, there’s more to the unusual than just the naming. Mom also was keeping me a secret. I kid you not. Mom’s idea of fun was to pull practical jokes on people.

One of her practical jokes once involved a restaurant where she and Dad were having lunch. In walked a good friend, someone who shared Mom’s warped sense of humor. The friend, Dr. Heintz, was seated a couple of tables away from where my parents were sitting. It was a perfect set-up. The young server brought the food to each table and that’s when the fun began.

Mom called the server over and told her “that man” pointing at Dr. Heintz, had offended her in some way and that she, the server, should go tell him to leave. Mind you this was back in the day when civility ruled and people were not aggressively rude and did not act out in public.

The server did as she was told and Mom, from where she was sitting, could see Dr. Heintz react to the “get out” news. He then sent a hostile message back through the server to Mom, who expressed her own shock and dismay. This back-and-forth went on long enough to become street theater for the other diners who had stopped eating and were watching with interest to see what would happen next.

Finally, Mom and Dr. Heintz had their fill of fun and haw-haw-haw’d, thanking the server for participating in their little charade and then thanking her for being a good sport (she was only laughing because she was relieved that she didn’t have to call the cops) and probably the other diners were mentally applauding for getting dinner and a show.

But back to her latest practical joke involving keeping her pregnancy a secret. What could be better than showing up one day with a baby no one knew about with a name no one had ever heard of?  

Somehow, she got my Dad to agree to this plan of action, thus neither one of them mentioned her pregnancy for the entire nine months. Mom took to wearing loose clothes and, since I was born in December, she was able to hide Baby Bump under the folds of a large winter coat.

However, there were a couple of people who knew about it – her sister, her niece — also pregnant, and Chief White Feather. Chief, as everyone called him, was a member of the Lakota Sioux and he was indeed a chief.

He also was an ordained minister and an evangelist who traveled extensively to preach at churches and give his testimony.

When he was in Tucson he would often stay with my parents and before long Chief was helping with the naming process. He had a name besides his Chief White Feather title and it was Teyet Ramar. Mom liked the Ramar part. Especially when he told her that Ra meant sun and Mar meant sea.

Dad was on board with the idea so that’s how I became RaMar. Chief expanded on this naming event to confer honorary princess status along with a full Sioux name: Weaka-ska-teyetramar-tatonka-eyo-tonka. Giving this name at cocktail parties is what you call an ice-breaker. Of course, this can weirdly backfire if the drinks haven’t kicked in.

Naturally, this begs the question: What is the translation for your honorary name?

Are you ready? White Eagle Tail Feathers Buffalo Bull Sitting Down. Don’t overthink this. And whatever you’re going to ask, my answer is, “No, I don’t know. Not a clue.”

Mom had fun with the honorary title over the years, calling me “Princess” when I was being a wonky teenage diva and using the “Weaka-ska-teyetramar-tatonka-eyo-tonka” when it suited her purposes. Like the time I went to the hospital to have my broken arm set after my horse bucked me off. The hospital admissions lady insisted she wanted my “full” name and was stonewalling Mom about something else so Mom cooperated (and retaliated) by writing my full honorary name on the patient sign-in form.

Over the years I’ve heard my name pronounced many ways. Here are some examples and the spelling is phonetic for full effect.

RAY-mar
REE-mar
RO-mar
LA-mar
RAM-mer

Sometimes I was asked if I was named for the Ramar character in the 1950 TV series Ramar of the Jungle. The series was about a doctor in Africa who the natives called “Medicine Man” or in their language “Ramar.” But me being named after a TV character was unlikely. We didn’t even have TV until I was a teenager. Mom thought television was a waste of time. But that was before I became interested in boys. Mom got a TV the day after the first boy called the house, a diversion strategy of epic proportions and one that helped keep me away from the dating scene for the rest of high school.

During the ‘70s, which was a weird decade to begin with, I saw my name both in print and on a line of women’s clothing. Everyone joyfully sent me the news story of Ramar a 440-pound silverback gorilla who lived at a zoo in North Carolina. Ramar’s moment of fame had to do with the fact that he was having trouble reproducing. So, the one time my name became widely known was because of a gorilla’s infertility issues. (Eventually, Ramar managed to sire three offspring none of whom carried on the name Ramar.) As for the clothing line, it was short-lived but I bought a piece before the Ramar brand became obsolete.

Although it appears there are no other people named RaMar, thanks to Google I have found many products and services that bear my name. Ramar vinyl brushes are sold in Germany. There are three separate Ramar businesses in the food industry: Ramar Restaurant Supplies, Ramar Foods, and Ramar Food Company. There is Ramar Moving Systems, a transport company, and a New York steel fabricator named RaMar Steel. According to the Free Dictionary, my name has been made into an acronym: Remotely Acquired Meter Account Readings (RAMAR).

Best of all Bullhead City, in my home state of Arizona, has a street named after me. The town fathers (and mothers) probably don’t know they named it after me, but yet here we are.

Anyway, back to Mom and her practical joke. She kept me under wraps for nine months and when I finally made my debut her wait paid off. She had all kinds of post-natal fun introducing me around to her surprised friends. And, she had another joke up her sleeve. Mom’s niece had given birth six months earlier, also to a girl and when one friend came to see me, Mom showed her Janey, my cousin. The friend marveled over how big Mom’s baby was.

“She’s so big, you can’t even tell she’s a newborn,” the woman said.