Wondering and Knowing

We took Dylan to the park over the weekend, and as we pushed the stroller past a port-a-potty, I read the name on it, "Mr. John". "Why are bathrooms called johns anyway?", I asked Jim. Always willing to accompany me in pondering life's nonsensicals, Jim replied, "Hmmm. Good question. I don't know". That thought got me thinking about some other guys.

Take "John Doe". This poor guy's name is synonymous with ordinary or anonymous. That has to give a person a complex, huh? Why was this guy so boring? And, how about Murphy, (as in Murphy's Law)? Who was this Murphy guy, and what happened to him that was so bad? I figured there had to be some interesting stories there, so I searched the internet.

This is what I found out...

"The "John Doe" custom dates back to the reign of England's King Edward III, during the legal debate over something called the Acts of Ejectment. This debate involved a hypothetical landowner, referred to as "John Doe," who leased land to another man, the equally fictitious "Richard Roe," who then took the land as his own and "ejected," or evicted, poor "John Doe."

These names -- John Doe and Richard Roe -- had no particular significance, aside from "Doe" (a female deer) and "Roe" (a small species of deer found in Europe) being commonly known nouns at the time. But the debate became a hallmark of legal theory, and the name "John Doe" in particular gained wide currency in both the legal world and general usage as a generic stand-in for any unnamed person. According to Mr. Dickson, "John Doe" and "Richard Roe" are, to this day, mandated in legal procedure as the first and second names given to unknown defendants in a case (followed, if necessary, by "John Stiles" and "Richard Miles"). The name "Jane Doe," a logical female equivalent, is used in many state jurisdictions, but if the case is federal, the unnamed defendant is dubbed "Mary Major.""

Still awake? That wasn't too exciting, was it? But wait! I'm going to tell you what I found out about Murphy...

"It seems that no one knows exactly who, if anyone, the Murphy of "Murphy's Law" was, although the "law" seems to have been discovered during or just after World War Two. According to the autobiographical book "Into Orbit" by former pilot and astronaut (not to mention Senator) John Glenn, "'Murphy' was a fictitious character who appeared in a series of educational cartoons put out by the U.S. Navy.... Murphy was a careless, all-thumbs mechanic who was prone to make such mistakes as installing a propeller backwards." Senator Glenn's recollection has not been verified, however, and it's equally possible that whoever actually dreamt up the pessimistic "Murphy's Law" simply picked the common name "Murphy" out of thin air."

Snore - or SUH-NORE!!, as I like to say. That's it?! I wish I hadn't asked. That just goes to show, sometimes the things we wonder about are much more fun to wonder about, instead of knowing the answer. The person who knows all the answers must be one disappointed dude ( or dudette!). Luckily that certainly isn't me.