I grew up in Buffalo, an industrial port city on the western shores of Lake Erie and the mouth of the Niagara River. The river, after tumbling over a certain famous waterfall and meandering for another 10 miles or so, empties into Lake Ontario.
From an early age I could situate these two lakes—in fact, all of the Great Lakes, and could rattle off their names: Erie, Ontario, Huron, Michigan, Superior.
It wasn’t until much later, maybe even not until I went away to college and met people from other regions, that I discovered many children learned a mnemonic to remember the names of the Great Lakes: the acronym HOMES, for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior.
Betraying my provincial background, I was surprised anyone needed this learning tool. I thought everyone could easily identify, name on a map, and even draw the Great Lakes’ shapes. Still, I appreciated the prompt that HOMES provided for those who didn’t grow up annexed to a Great Lake.
Now, sadly, frustratingly, infuriatingly, someone has renamed Lake Ontario to Lake America. This renaming is not only a perfect reflection of the petty, bratty, bullying nature of 47, it entirely blows up HOMES as a mnemonic.
Sure, other presidents have renamed landmarks, monuments, and geographical features. President Obama renamed Mount McKinley to Mount Denali, which means “the high one” in the Koyukon language of Alaska’s indigenous people. He renamed some military bases that were previously named for Confederate generals to the names of Medal of Honor recipients, swapping out traitors to the nation for defenders of the nation. Vindictive 47 renamed them back.
But the renaming of Lake Ontario is the one that hits closest to me. He did it out of spite, which is how he does most things, because he had to pick a fight with our good neighbor to the North.
For those of us who often travel to Canada, the situation is embarrassing. Whenever I cross the border, I want to apologize to the customs agent. I don’t, because I’ve learned the only thing to talk about at the border is the business at hand. But I did recently drop in on an open house on Bernard Avenue in Thunder Bay and told the real estate agent that we owned the house across the street. She said, “So you’re Americans.” I said I was sorry, but she waved away my apology and said, “No need.”
Even though 47 has been picking on Canada since he was re-elected, I’ve found Canadians gracious and friendly to me when I’m visiting. And thousands of Canadians regularly cross the border to shop, dine, and attend Bills and Sabres games, although the number is smaller than it used to be, because of the resentment fomented by you know who. I think I’ll rename him to President Lump, as in “a useless lump of protoplasm.”
Only federal agencies and publications are required to adhere to the renaming of Lake Ontario. Still, no surprise the billionaire oligarchs from Apple and Google quickly adopted the name change. At least Governor Hochul of New York said, and I am paraphrasing, “No fucking way are we changing the name of Lake Ontario.”
I was also pleased to hear that the Buffalo Bills will now be joining the Buffalo Sabres in playing both the U.S. and Canadian national anthems before all home games. Go Bills!
The worst part of all this mess: our schoolchildren can no longer rely on the acronym HOMES to remember the names of the Great Lakes. But SHAME works now. Should we start teaching shame?
