Category: TanJam Sessions

The Great Flying Swings by Tanja Buzzi,1975

~ Tanja Buzzi Moriarty ~ 8 Comments
Tanja at ten. My fifth grade teacher, Lance Hall encouraged our class to write stories. He would then read them to the class. Though my home life was very stressful at this time, school was a haven to me. Before puberty and peer pressure set in, I was creative and comfortable with myself—and recognized as a writer!

One fine Saturday, I went down to the carnival.  I bought two rolls of tickets.  First I decided to go on the Ferris Wheel. It was high up, but I didn’t care.  I saw the whole carnival.  Then I went over the concession stand to get some cotton candy and a soda.  After that I went on the Round Up but that was pretty short.  Then I went on the Moon walk and stayed on two tickets long.  Then I was tired.

So I hopped on the Scrambler.  Then I noticed the Flying Swings.  I got off and went on one of the outside swings.  The motor started and I was going around and around.  For some reason, I felt the bottom of the swing, something that felt like a knob.  I pushed it. All of a sudden the chain unhooked and I started to go up, just as if I was a balloon and someone let go of my string.  Well any way, I went up about 10 feet.  Everyone stared at me even the guys that ran the rides were looking up at me. I went up a little higher so I was even with the Ferris Wheel.  I said, “Stop!” and the swing stopped.

I heard a fat lady say, “What shall we do, should we call the telephone company?” That really helps matters, doesn’t it?  Everyone was worried all except me.  I was having a ball!  I could see almost all of Higganum! The people of the Middletown Press and the Hartford Courant came to take pictures and to write articles on me.

The Eye Witness news team came down and did a report on me.  Then a special telegram went to the President of the United States.  Mr. Ford came by helicopter.  He landed on the Higganum Green.  Then he saw me and said to me, “How on earth did you get up there?”  I started to explain but everybody started shaking hands and asking him for autographs.

So I pushed the bottom and said, “Take me back home.”  So I went back home.  “Don’t believe me then.”  That’s what I said when I told my family.  Then my sister said, “What do you have to prove it?”  Then I went to my room and got the swing then told it to glide down the stairs and go straight to the family room.  It did.  My family was astonished.  “It was all run by a machine, see the knob and wires?” I said.  I looked around at the swing’s bottom seat.  On it was a mark that said, “Hollywood California, filming.”  It must have been in a place where they had made movies. I wrote to The Middletown Press and to the Courant to get things cleared up.    The end.

Do you remember when you were ten? What were you like? What did you do for fun?  Write yourself a letter from your ten year old self to your present day self.  What would he or she say to you? Advise you to do?

Tann-ya! Tahn-ya! Banana! Bah-nah-nah!

~ Tanja Buzzi Moriarty ~ 21 Comments

Welcome to my website!  I am  Tanja, pronounced “Tann-ya.”  (Nevermind the “J”, it’s silent. Think Scandinavian, like “Yumpin’ Yiminy” for “Jumpin’ Jiminy”.)   It’s  “Tann-ya”, like “Can ya?” not “Tahn -ya”,  that rhymes with lasagna. Think Sun-Tan, or tan as in beige.

This is all a bit laborious to explain every time I hear my name read from an attendance sheet, a roll call, or resume.  I wince when nine of ten times it’s, “Tahn-ya” I hear, and not my given pronounciation, “Tann-ya.”

Most of the times I just deal with it—like the momentary scratch of nails on a chalkboard.  It’s easier to take it if I know that I’ll probably never have to deal with the person again, say at the DMV when my renewed, still warm driver’s license is ready, “Tahn-ya, your license is ready,” or I am alerted from a librarian that a book I am picking through library loan is in. “Tahn-ya, your book is in.”

But what really peeves me is when I just introduced myself to someone who I will likely see frequently, socially, or professionally who seems to completely disregard the proper pronounciation of my name. I start out with high hopes, extending my hand first. “Hi, I am Tann- ya,” I say with firm emphasis on the “ann” part. “Oh, hi, Tahhhhhhhn-ya, I’m so and so.”  Wince, wince.  I am so distracted by the mispronunciation of my name and secretly cursing the person, that I have to really work to remember his or her name.

Conversely,  if a person says my name correctly on first meeting, I am instantly delighted and already like them.  Many times though in subsequent meetings or  if they immediately introduce me to someone else, they fall from grace because they identify me as, “Tahhn-ya.”  Ugh!

Why can’t a person take an extra half brain cell in the audio department of his or her head to recall the correct sound of “Tann-ya”, instead of falling back on the stock, generic “Tahn-ya”?

What’s fun too,  is that people say more times than you’d think, “Oh, you’re Tann-ya! My friend has a dog named Tahhn-ya. Great! It’s usually some shih tzu or stuck up poodle.  Figures.

One of my college professors, a communications department head no less, actually admonished me once at the beginning of a semester.   He called my name the wrong way in class and I shyly corrected him,  “Please call me Tann-ya.”

“Tann-ya? Why Tann-ya?” he sneered the short ” a”  through his nasal cavity. “Tahn-ya is so much more sophisticated!”

“You’re an ahhhs-hole,” I thought to myself, too self-conscious back then to say it.  “My mother named me Tann-ya. I am not a Tahhn-ya.”

On occasion I bump into a woman who is wearing “Tanya” on a name badge, or some variation of our troublesome name.  I almost always ask, “Do you pronounce it Tahn-ya or Tann-ya?”  Inveribly she says she’s a “Tahn-ya.”    I say, “I’m Tann-ya.  Do you ever get called Tann-ya?”  There’s a pause and I recognize the kindred sparkle in her eyes. “I get called “Tann-ya” all the time!”