Stubborn Town

Up in the scenic, mountainous Adirondack Mountains (not to be redundant) of upstate New York state (again), they have some towns with those quaint old Early American-type names such as Cheektowaga, Coxsackie, Schenevus, Niskayuna, Oswegatchie, Swastika, Poughkeepsie, and Rensselaer.

Uh, excuse me? There's a town called "Swastika"???

For real. It's just an unincorporated hamlet, not even a full town of its own. Not far away is the town of Black Brook (population 1,500) which, in the manner of small-town America, has jurisdiction over Swastika.

A man who passed through the foul-named burg lodged a foul with the commissioners of Black Brook. They put the matter on their agenda for the monthly meeting in September, discussed the matter for five minutes, and held a vote about renaming S-Town.

The four commissioners voted unanimously. AGAINST the proposal.

"Swastika was named by the founders of the area who settled there," said Jon Douglass, Black Brook's town supervisor. Douglass attended the meeting but has no vote.

I mean, he's only the supervisor, for crying out loud.

Douglass does say that the name was given the town long before Hitler and World War II came along and befouled the earth. He goes on to say that the word itself is Sanskrit for "well-being," (you have to like the irony) and the swastika symbol, which you will not see here, is used in Indian religions as a good-luck sign.

Douglass says that the issue has been raised before, not long after the war, and some of the local veterans who had fought against the fascists (ANTIFA, ya dig?) said they would not stand for their town's name being besmirched that way just because Hitler did what he did.

So even though a) very few people in the town speak or write Sanskrit, and b) India is far, far away, the council saw no good reason to abandon the name just because it is now associated with hateful white supremacists.

"I think that's probably, maybe some viewpoint that it's associated with hate. But then I believe there are others that do not associate it with hate," Douglass said. "Did the Hindus and the [Buddhists] and all them, did they erase it from their religious history because of the Germans?"

Predictably, some of the locals are bristling about "some out-of-towner" trying to meddle in their beeswax.

But it seems so incongruous that a town blessed with such natural beauty would want to be reminded of the most evil empire in world history every time the town's name is mentioned.

Would you name a baby "Cancer" or "Depravity"?