Today my name is Leslie

Hello adoring fans. It's been awhile. I know. The reasons for that are two fold. 1 - I haven't been drinking as much coffee. I recently switched to decaf and while I still enjoy the taste of coffee it just isn't the same. 2 - The good people of Starbucks are getting smart. They are now checking my debit card for my name instead of asking me. I find myself trying to trick them into getting my name wrong. Well today no tricks were required. Today my name is Leslie.



Offhand the only Leslie I can think of is Leslie Nielsen (whom I was sad to learn died recently. RIP buddy. RIP). No offense Mr. Nielsen, but I don't feel like being a Canadian. Not today anyway.

It seems like Leslie as a first name is a more modern usage. Historically Leslie was a surname. A lot of impressive people had the surname in fact. Earls. War heroes. Western gunfighters. But I'm still lamenting the recent annihilation of my vacation to Australia so instead of being a gunfighter, today I am Patrick Leslie, one of the first settlers of Australia. (Also known as criminals. Jay kay.)

Patrick was Scottish. Him and his brothers settled Darling Downs in Queensland Australia.

When I was last in Australia I read several books about the continent and some of the history. However, it was at this stage of my research that I realized I don't really care to research the colonization of Australia. So instead I'm just going to imagine that Patrick Leslie's life was exactly like the movie Australia. You should too.