What do you think of when I say astronaut? A couple of weeks ago before the bizarre tragic situation with the woman astronaut I would have thought of John Glenn or Neil Armstrong or even that new Billy Bob movie Astronaut Farmer.

The mind is funny like that. With just a word or phrase, mountains of information and images flood the brain. It’s because of that very fact that sometimes the names of things get changed. “sales clerk” has become “sales associate.” Maybe people thought “sales clerk” and pictured some guy running around a dry-goods store looking for buggy whips or something. I guess “associate” conveys a more modern feel and gives people a better impression.

The same thing goes for “flight attendant” instead of “stewardess” and on and on.

I’ve been called “liberal” by my conservative friends but I’m not sure I understand why. Liberal can mean generous but I’m not overly generous. It can mean open-minded and I’d like to think that I am. But over the last 20 years or so the word has been demonized so much that all of a sudden it means something else.

Images of Ted Kennedy lighting a Cuban cigar with your tax dollars comes to mind for some. When I think of Senator Kennedy I think of the work he’s done to help middle and working class people and his own family history. But I’ve got to admit, his name does make me think of privilege and things in his personal past that bother me.

So all of a sudden a nice word like “liberal” creates this terrible reaction. My wife hates the word “bunnies” because she saw an episode of the Jefferson’s when she was young where they were held up at gunpoint by a guy in a bunny suit. You can’t get more innocent and cute than bunnies but you should see my wife’s face when I say bunnies!

I have a friend Mike out in Hollywood, (all liberals have secret Hollywood elite friends) who told me that the phrase “re-purposed” is being used to describe this very phenomenon. Maybe your favorite song has been turned into a commercial lately. Instead of those pleasant teenage memories hearing the song “Fire,” by Jimi Hendrix, those memories will now be replaced by the Verizon company logo and the image of bars; and not the fun kind of bars. That song has been re-purposed for your protection and for their profit.

I took a job a few years ago at L.L Bean monogramming dog beds. Rich people have dogs that can read apparently. I had to learn all new colors. The work order called for Taupe and Coral Bisque thread! If you spend that much money, you don’t want light brown and orange thread I guess. I’m sorry but I go to the “dump” because I have fond memories of going to the “dump” every Saturday with my dad. The name has changed but some things haven’t.

If you bring stuff home from the dump, be it your mother or your wife, she will be mad at you! “But, honey, this chair kind of matches the other ones! We can have your whole family over for the holidays!”

Speaking of the holidays, let’s talk about politically correct language. Racial and ethnic slurs don’t count. Some things are politically correct and some things are correct. That type of stuff is just plain incorrect as far as I’m concerned so let’s just laugh at the silly stuff.

I went to the town hall in Standish today and was given a cranberry muffin by a nice lady at the town hall. (Is it OK to say “Lady?” How about “Cranberry Muffin?”) I went to check on the latest lingo for those special parking spaces in front of the supermarket. I thought for sure that maybe “Handicapped” parking permits were now called “differently-abled” parking permits, but they aren’t. You can get a “Disability Plate” at the town hall so there is no “war on Christmas” there. I think that’s why the graphic designer who made up the handicap parking signs just put a wheel chair on them in case of any name change.

Back in December, my wife visited her family in Massachusetts and can you believe they were selling “Holiday Trees!?” We all know that the pagans used evergreen trees when they celebrated Yule! They stole Yule! For the record, nobody stole anything. Maybe things have been re-purposed to sell more things to more people but you can say Merry Christmas anytime you want. There, I said it! You can even say it in February!

The only time it gets tricky is when you are within breathing distance of a lawyer-type. My buddy Bryan and I were going to play some songs in December for the kids at the school he works in. Unfortunately these songs were not “Frosty, the Snowman” or “Jingle Bells” so we were asked not to play them. It was because people were afraid of these “lawyer” people. Maybe if we called these lawyer people something else or “re-purposed” them we could go back to normal. Please write to me with your suggestions.