What’s in a name?

Heron House.  For three or four months we struggled to come up with the perfect name for our cottage on Bath Creek.  We threw name after name out there and nothing sounded right.  I kept telling Mary Ruth that when we heard the right name we would know it.  Up the Creek without a Paddle . . .no.  something to do with a goose (a childhood nickname my sister had for me). . . NO!  And then one day, it rolled off my tongue  . . . Heron House.  I called up Mary Ruth and told her I had the name.

The great thing about the name is that it had a couple of different meanings.  The most obvious was when we were first looking at the house and then when we were under contract, every time I  came down here, a beautiful great blue heron would be standing guard on our pier.  It appeared that he would make his rounds and visit several neighborhood docks each day.  As a child, my parents were avid bird watchers.  We would drive around and they would point out birds and it bored me to no end.  But I know now that some of what they showed me sunk in.  And this is one of the reasons why I was so drawn to this heron who stood on my pier.  (Just yesterday, a red winged black bird flew by and I shrieked to my 14 year old daughter, “Look, a RWBB!” and she gave me a teenage look.  I told her that was the exact same way I would look at Mom and Dad when they showed me a bird. I have become my parents and that makes me smile.)

I had also hoped to incorporate our initials into the name of the house.  Heron House did that perfectly as all of the owners’ last names begin with H.

Last of all, both Mary Ruth and I have always been avid REM fans.   We both love music and our biggest common denominator with music has always been REM.  On their album Document that came out in 1987 is a song called “Disturbance at the Heron House.”  This song is the fourth track on an album that marks the beginning of my love for alternative music.  And it just seemed too fitting that the name of house that Mary Ruth and I shared would also have something in common with REM.

Since the house has been dubbed, I haven’t seen our namesake.  I am certain he will be back.  Or maybe he was just here to deliver the message of our cottage’s name.  Let me know if you see our friend, the heron, while you are here at Heron House.