Sooner or later.

Sir John Smith, Admiral of New England—otherwise known, more famously, as Captain John Smith.

Most school children in the United States know the story of Captain Smith and the Jamestown Colony.  Most of us remember all the exciting details of the capture by Powhatan and the rescue by Pocahontas.

And most of us now know that the truth of those tales is somewhat suspect.

Captain Smith made a good few enemies.  His veracity has been questioned over the centuries.  Investigation is complicated by post-Civil War scholars attempts to give precedence to the New England colonies over Virginia’s early settlers.

And Captain Smith seems to have made a habit of being rescued by young girls, since he tells the same story about his time in Transylvania prior to the voyage to Jamestown.

So, who knows?

Did he embellish his memoirs?  Was he an ally or enemy to the Native Americans?  An honor to the Smith name or not?

We’ll never really know.

But he was an adventurer, a survivor, a leader, and an explorer.

We’ll have to settle for that.

About gun violence today?

Another Smith with timely relevance is Horace Smith, one of the founders of Smith & Wesson.  S&W are firearms manufacturers, in case you’ve never watched television or read a book or otherwise seen any reference to any of their products.  They are one of the usual issuers of firearms to law enforcement agencies.

Horace has been out of the gun business since 1883, and if he were still alive, he’d be really glad, I think.

The company that bears his name was severely punished by the NRA during the last round of discussions about gun control with a boycott by its members because S&W tried to do the responsible thing and voluntarily incorporate some safety, design and distribution standards.

I think Horace, whose estate established a fund for scholarships, would be appalled by what’s happening with guns just now.  I hope so anyway.

Smith, of course.

Another Smith by marriage, Jada Pinkett Smith joined the Smith tribe when she married actor, producer, rapper Will Smith. 

She’s an actor, singer, songwriter, writer, businesswoman and mother of two.

I confess that I did not know much about Ms. Smith (and still don’t, really) until I stumbled across a quote of something she said in response to criticism and questions as to why she and her husband had let their twelve year old daughter cut her hair in a particular way.  Something about that resonated with me.

Here’s the quote that apparently originated on Facebook:

The question why I would LET Willow cut her hair. First the LET must be challenged. This is a world where women,girls are constantly reminded that they don’t belong to themselves; that their bodies are not their own, nor their power or self determination. I made a promise to endow my little girl with the power to always know that her body, spirit and her mind are HER domain. Willow cut her hair because her beauty, her value, her worth is not measured by the length of her hair. It’s also a statement that claims that even little girls have the RIGHT to own themselves and should not be a slave to even their mother’s deepest insecurities, hopes and desires. Even little girls should not be a slave to the preconceived ideas of what a culture believes a little girl should be. More to come. Another day.

What’s also really cool is Mr. Smith’s response to the same question asked by Parade Magazine:

We let Willow cut her hair. When you have a little girl, it’s like how can you teach her that you’re in control of her body? If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world.  She has got to have command of her body. So when she goes out into the world, she’s going out with a command that is hers.

So, I’m going to be following Mr. and Mrs. Smith from now on, I think.  Because I approve this message.

The Grand Dame of Dish.

This is not a title by royal fiat.  It’s more of a PR title, but considering a career that began in 1949 and is still continuing—what is that?  63 years?—it’s okay with me.

Today’s Smith is Liz Smith.

Currently blogging for the Huffington Post, for decades she was one of New York’s premiere gossip columnists.  Before that, she was a news producer for NBC and an entertainment editor for Cosmopolitan magazine.

You can also find her stuff currently on the website she helped found:  The Women on the Web.

You can say what you like about gossip columnists, but for any woman to make it in journalism in that era and to make herself a household name in NYC, a power in the theatre, and to still be going strong—that’s impressive!

A lizard Smith

After the week we’ve had discussing lizards, you didn’t think I would let a Smith Sunday pass without finding out if there were any Smiths anywhere remotely connected to lizards, did you?

Surprisingly, it wasn’t that hard to find one!

Meet Hobart Muir Smith, the most published herpetologist of all time.

As best I can tell, Mr. Smith is still alive—and probably, still publishing.  He’s over 100 now.

Not many people have had five species named after them, including—how could you doubt it?—a lizard!

Best wishes for a long and healthy life, Mr. Smith!