What's in a name? asked Shakespeare

What’s the power of a name? Some Americans accept the name given them at birth and grow into that vision. Others let a nickname stand for the sum of them. Still others may change the spelling to help redefine themselves. But Western culture has a rich tradition regarding names.In Genesis numerous people change their name to signify a special change in life which God had brought about; i.e., Abram becomes Abraham, Sarai, Sarah; Jacob, Israel. [I wonder if Abram had to go around to his friends and say, "Oh, by the way, call me Abraham from now on."] How do names define us? Modern Roman Catholics continue that tradition by taking a confirmation name. I, for example, took the name Raphael (God has healed) for mine.Native Americans are said to have two names--the name they are given by their parents and their true name which only they know. Western culture is not the only one with a tradition of changing one's name. According to the Penguin Classics edition of Shen Fu's Six Records of a Floating Life: "In addition to a childhood name and a proper given name, all educated Chinese of the Imperial period had at least two others--a 'literary name' taken to express usually, a desired attribute (Shu-chen means something like 'precious virtue') and a 'style', a sort of formal nickname. Both could be changed at will, making life interesting for later scholars." According to one source, "Bamboo symbolizes the perfect one, the one who like the pliant but resilient runk of the Bamboo, bends to the times, adapts themselves to society, but retains unaffected within themselves their moral character." I could not ask for a better symbol of myself than Bamboo. For as the philosopher Pascal noted, we are but a reed, the weakest thing in nature, but we are a thinking reed.   Bending like the Bamboo My name is David. I have always been David, but I haven't always used the name. My parents named me Charles David Claudon. So until I got to college, I was Charles. I hated the name...it seemed really formal and much too stuffy. My first day at college, when asked what my name was, I chose to use Chuck --my grandfather's nickname--and that's how I was known for 25 years. [I always know the people who only knew me from my hometown because they still call me Charles.] When I began with AOL, I had the chance to take any name, so I took my middle name. I found I liked the name David a lot... it felt comfortable and fit. So when my wife and I separated in 1995, I decided to lose "Chuck" and move to Wicker_Park. The name is really me and always has been. [It was funny to have friends tell me, "You know, you look like a David," or "You know, you don't look like a Chuck."] Drama has always seemed to define my life. I received my BS from Illinois State University (1966) in Speech and my MA fromUniversity of Illinois (1970) in Drama. I started teaching in 1966 at MacArthur High School in Decatur, IL, and moved in 1969 to Rich East High School, located in a southern Chicago suburb, Park Forest, where I was the drama director. I directed drama until around 1984. For the next ten years I taught English courses, helped create History and Thought of Western Man, a course for academically gifted sophomores and juniors, and worked with gifted students. From 1998 to 2000, I returned to my roots and directed plays. At the end of last year, I had three students ask if I would return and do the plays for their senior year. I did. We presented Our Town and ended the season with a fun version of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The play was done in 1960s drag, with fairies as hippies and bikers, Hipolyta as a Black Panther, and Theseus as a mythical military dictator. We used projected settings and two fantastic pillars with designs inspired by the great pop artist, Peter Max. The audience responded to the high energy and enthusiastic cast and it was one of my most successful shows, having over 40 kids and a collective audience that exceeded over 800 people. In November 2003, we did Lawrence and Lee's The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, which received great reviews from the people who came. The play concentrates on the night Thoreau spent in jail in Concord, Massachusetts for refusing to pay his taxes. The theme of marching to one's own drummer seems as appropriate for today's audiences as it was when written in the 1970s. In August 1995 my journey to find myself continued and I moved out of Chicago to the western suburb of Berwyn, where I've grown and emerged as a more complete person. I went through RCIA and joined the Roman Catholic Church. I volunteer extensively with my home parish, St. Bernardine Church, as cantor and choir member (and for a time served as head of Art and Environment). Small Accomplishments. In 1966, I took a scene design course and ended up making 6 1/2-inch=1-foot scale models. Since then I have created miniature rooms, written numerous articles for various national magazines on miniatures, run my own miniatures business [The Butterfly Cat Studio], and eventually, became heavily involved with the National Association of Miniature Enthusiasts. During the late 1980s and 1990s, I even served on the board of directors and eventually served as president. I'll be posting rooms and creations on here periodically. For example, here is one of my miniature vignettes was featured in a national miniatures magazine, Miniature Collector. The figure was by Mary Penet. The room box was an old doctor's wood case. My journey continues. Over the years I've learned that Life is not a goal, it is a journey. It is our actions along that journey that define who we are. Some things I would like to have done better, but there was no road map for me to follow. I realize that all our actions, both good and bad, make us into the complex people that we are. After retiring from Rich East High School, I spent 8 months in retirement primarily writing and working on computer art. I guess it didn't take. When St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago needed someone to cover a pregnancy leave for 6 weeks, I filled in and after almost 10 years, I am still teaching there part time. I love having a flexible schedule of two classes with three days on and one day off and working with the students. This year I'm teaching creative writing and British Literature. Next year will be my 50th year teaching. I have learned from experience the power of painter Mary Cassatt's observation: "Acceptance on someone else's terms is worse than rejection."