by Alan B. Combs

Ah, a workday, sandwiched between a holiday and a weekend. Alan, not working, peeks into the bar and tells the following tall tale.

It is interesting how people arrive at the names to give children. When one works in an orphanage, the problem becomes even more difficult. One young fellow from Arizona had a *very* mixed parentage. The father, a Hispanic National was a traveling salesman for one of the major insurance companies, Kemper Life, though the mother would not give any more information. The mother was from a Native American tribe in Northeastern Arizona. She called the boy Juan, after his father it was believed, and she gave him up for adoption. She left it to the kind people at the orphanage to take care of the baby, including completing his name. Eventually they arrived at a name that tied together all of his roots.

People always bugged the child about his name, but he liked it. They asked how he could put up with such a motley melange, but he would stand tall and say with great pride, “I am Juan Hopi Kemper!”