My Cousin's Town

I did a posting not that long ago about the names of the widespread places that pop up on my landline for robo calls. Having never been to MS—Mississippi—I can safely let the call ring through and not be afraid I'm avoiding anyone I know. Annoyingly, the ignored call rings often enough that it registers as a "message" on my phone, and gives me the blinking light. This then involves retrieving the message to clear the cache, No one ever talks, just several seconds of silence, then a disconnect. Nice not talking to you too.

The other day a call came through from a new place, Angelica, New York. Pleasant sounding name. Living in New York State my entire life I'm well aware there are plenty of places with names I've never heard of. 

When my cardiologist had reason to check his cell phone the other day, I told him how my cell phone is usually never on, but that I do get robo calls on my landline. He told me of a cell phone call he got from someone at a heart catheter unit in Philadelphia that was trying to reach him at 2 A.M.

Not a true robo call, but more a wrong number. Ironic, because he does do heart catheterizations, but not in Philadelphia.

And since something always reminds me of something, I told him of being at a conference and there was a doctor from Chicago, an obstetrician, who told the story of a woman calling him in the middle of the night and telling him she was having contractions. It was time.

The problem was the woman wasn't his patient. She wasn't even in his area. It was completely out of the blue. It wasn't him she wanted, although she was certainly in need of the service he provides.

I teased him that it proved there are too many doctors in the United States if the wrong number can reach the right specialty. He did laugh.

I was tempted to take the call and harass the Angelica caller with the information that my cousin's name is Angelica, but that now she's retired and lives in Greece. 

I passed on the idea, knowing full well that whoever is making the call is likely nowhere near the real Angelica, New York, but in some call center boiler room that has its calls routed through an Angelica exchange

But where is Angelica New York? The state has 57 counties, some with great sounding names like Wyoming, Cattaraugus and Onondaga. Lots of American Indian names. I often think that these farming communities can't possibly have their own district attorneys, can they? They must combine jurisdictions.

Of course Wikipedia to the rescue:

Angelica [A Town Where History Lives] is a town in the middle of Allegany County, New York, hard by the Pennsylvania border in the southwestern part of the state. The population was 1,403 at the 2010 census. The town's name is from Angelica Schulyer Church, Philip Schuyler's daughter, Alexander Hamilton's sister-in-law, and the wife of John Barker Church. The town was named by Philip Schuyler Church, who was one of the original settlers of the area, and the son of Angelica and John Barker Church. The village of Angelica is located within this town.

So the town was named after a mom. I have no idea how my cousin got the name Angelica. I wonder if in the musical 'Hamilton' there is an Angelica character.

This is great stuff. I hope they call back and we can talk.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com