Two Ellis Island tales:
 
The grandfather of a friend arrived from Czechoslovakia and the man sitting  
at the desk could not spell the name, so asked an interpreter if the name had 
a  meaning. The guy replied the name sounded like a fruit, kind of like 
"apple."  So, the man arrived in America with the last name of Apple.
 
Another person arrived from England with a name that sounded obscene,  so the 
man at the table demanded another name. The English  man, perplexed, replied, 
" any thing." His papers in America  showed his last name as "Thing." (a 
version of that tale is the man  requested a judge name him anything other than 
his birth name, and the  papers listed him as Thing).
 
Fortunately for me, my family slipped through Canada into the Mexican  
Territory and dispensed with those silly bigoted rules.
 
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.  



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