GUARDIAN SUMMER
If you are a baseball fan, it really was! They have a great young team led by a great old (if 63 is old, but not by my standards) manager. Someone asked him if it didn’t hurt so much to lose at the end since the team went so much farther than expected. His response? “When we lose, we bleed.” Sound familiar? That could be the battle cry of New Franklin as we are blessed with old school folks who care deeply about what they do and invest pretty much everything into every effort. But that’s not the only reason for the title. We also wanted to welcome the shot of good weather we expect to enjoy this weekend. In the past the term “Indian Summer” would have been used to describe an unseasonably warm period in autumn. The question has now arisen as to whether it is insensitive these days to still use that term, given in our personal experience that even the name of our baseball team was changed.
How the term was derived is not certain. It apparently goes back to the 1600s. Some say it was intended to suggest the time of autumn when Native Americans hunted most. A darker theory suggests the term was intended to mean a “false summer,” playing on the term “Indian giver” which is considered offensive. Plenty of disagreement on issues such as these but we’ll take the high road as suggested by one author who wrote, “As we navigate this changing world we are learning more about each other every day. As that happens we learn that what we say may impact our friends and neighbors. It’s okay to use another term so as to be sure not to offend. One might call this being politically correct, but others would call it respect, and that’s not a bad thing.” So there you have it, New Franklin - Guardian Summer! Get out there this weekend and enjoy it!
Paul Adamson, Mayor
Original source can be found here
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