Marked for Life

I am sitting on an I-beam 30 stories above much lower, Lower Manhattan in the midst of a cage of buildings rising around me in my early 30's eating my lunchtime poultry based deli sandwich. My fellow steel worker and best friend Mark and I are enjoying the spring day, watching bits of my flaky chicken leave my fingers as I declare with flair, "Fly, My Little Bits of Chicken®, fly!" in a wicked witch voice from The Wizard of Oz. We watch the flaky bird bits reach their floating version of terminal velocity.

I suddenly become curious of Mark's ethnic origins and heritage. He answers, "My parents were a dangerous combination of Mohawk Indians (well known for their balance and working high steel) and hippies. They tried very hard to be 100% of each and that's why I ended up with such a weird name"

I questioned, "Well, 'Mark' doesn't sound very weird or very Indian to me". He filled in by saying that Mark was only a piece of his middle name. On the way to the hospital to be born, they didn't make it in time so his father pulled the car over to a roadside park. So immediately after he was born, his father looked around to see what object to name his son after, and hence the name 'Historical Marker'.

I replied, "That is weird, even for hippies, and yet follows an Indian tradition."

"I do think I fared better than my sister Tab though"

"I don't think that sounds very Indian or weird"

"Its because it is just the first piece of my twin sister's middle name, 'Picnic Table'"