Today's Baltimore Sun had a front-page story about a group of African American legislators from Baltimore who have decided that Negro Mountain in Garrett County should be re-named. I didn't even know there was a Negro Mountain in Maryland, but I do know that there's a Warrior's Ridge. It's the next mountain over from Polish Mountain...
... emmmm ... Polish Mountain. That would be the Polish Mountain where my farm is...
The selfsame Polish Mountain that is now "under study" for a name change as well.
I kid you not, readers. A committee led by two Maryland lawmakers named Nathanial Oaks and Lisa Gladden has decided to look into dubious mountain names with the hopes of changing them to something more politically correct.
EXHIBIT A: MOUNTAIN TO BE NAMED LATER
I'll go out on a politically-incorrect limb here and say that I don't find "Negro Mountain" to be particularly offensive. But it's not my right to say. I don't live on Negro Mountain, and I'm not African American.
However, I do own property on Polish Mountain (at least for now), and I'm extremely affronted by Ms. Gladden and Mr. Oaks' sudden attention to its name.
Maryland's state anthem has pro-Confederate lyrics that are so offensive no one ever dares sing it in public. If the state's black lawmakers want a cause celebre, they could certainly begin with that song. Or they could re-name the statue dedicated to Confederate mothers in north Baltimore. Right in their own back yard.
But to suggest that the name of Polish Mountain is "under study" for a change is, to me, the finest waste of taxpayer dollars and hot air in the history of the Free State.
There's a whole scene in the Penn-Faulkner Award-winning novel, The Chaneysville Incident, that takes place on Polish Mountain. The author uses the name Polish Mountain. Just like everyone has since before any data was recorded on paper. No one really knows how the mountain got its name. It certainly didn't have to do with anyone of Polish ancestry. And it certainly wasn't a stab at Polish people. It's a beautiful mountain. Any Pole would be proud to live on it.
I have of course fired off a blistering email to Sens. Gladden and Oaks, telling them to get about some more important and relevant business. The time they spend studying Polish Mountain's name could be better spent ... oh, I dunno ... blocking development along the Chesapeake Bay? Improving the quality of Baltimore's public schools? Curbing irrational exurban development projects? Blocking the pending plans to drill for gas underneath the doggone mountains, with possible environmental devastation?
Oh, but it's so much easier to re-name the mountains! We'll just let the natural gas people in on the changes, so they can plan accordingly.
This is not the first time that I have noticed the preponderance of morons in politics. Where do we find these people?
I can't speak for Negro Mountain, but I think with Polish Mountain, my mountain, the crusading legislators may have met their match. You see, Polish Mountain begins at the Potomac River and runs due north into Pennsylvania. Yes, this name change would have to go through not one but two state legislatures. Who would have to approve sign changes, and map changes. And who would have to explain to the African American author of The Chaneysville Incident why his novel would no longer be geographically accurate.
I'm glad my mother-in-law alerted me to this pending legislation in Maryland. I have plenty of time to go home to Polish Mountain and speak to each and every one of its 376 residents. We will no doubt decide to secede from the state and the nation and form our own country. We'll name it the Democratic Republic of Polish Mountain. And we'll pick a better anthem, something meaningful like "Rocky Top."
If they re-name my mountain, I'm going to be so offended that I'll insist that they also re-name Druid Hill Park (in Baltimore). As a Druid, I STRONGLY OBJECT to having an urban park named after my religion!
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