Definitive Geronimo

There have been many responses to what 'Geronimo' really does mean to Americans.

But the impact of this name, and what it really meant to young men growing up in the middle of

the last century, reached 'round the world. This story seems definitive Geronimo to me.

My husband, Stuart Shaw, was growing up at that time in Yorkshire, England. I

wondered what he thought about Geronimo, what that meant to him. He lives in the Motion

Picture Home now. He has Parkinson's disease and it is at the stage where he has become very

eccentric, but no less imaginative and intriguing.

The other day, I decided to ask him if he knew what 'Geronimo' meant. Stuart was very

quiet. He looked off into the distance. Then he put his hand to his ear, as if holding a telephone.

"I've had a call," he tells me, "it's about Geronimo."

Then he put his arm down, as if to hang up, and told me this story.

"When I was developing major marketing plans for new products, a man with a lot of

money approached me and said he wanted to do more with this white substance, which I knew

and appreciated as ice cream. We both agreed much more could be done. The man looked me

over and said, 'I need a bold, original man with an inventive, expansive character.' We talked

for about a half an hour. He reached his arm out and shook my hand. He beamed at me. 'You

have the job.' And that," my husband said, "is what Geronimo really means."

"Geronimo is the expression for getting what you really want, taking a chance, going for

it and getting it. During the Second World War," my husband said, "paratroopers cried

out 'Geronimo' when they jumped out of planes. This name of a major Apache leader and chief

was a power word, an inspirational word to charge them up as they leapt into out into the sky.

You become a brave warrior, you encourage yourself. You are Geronimo."

I remembered when we were kids playing cowboys and Indians. We'd trade sides but we

thought of Geronimo as the heroic spirit and we'd shout his name when we'd charge around the

hills in Brentwood through the brush and ivy around the trees and into each other's pools.
There

were no fences then and the whole neighborhood was our territory.

"Geronimo," my husband reflected, "is the name for triumph, a symbol of valor and

discovery. It's a very fine name. I knew it would come to me. And it was during that job when

I discovered electronic ice cream, which you already enjoy. So Geronimo," he formed fists and

raised them in the air as high and as powerfully as he could and repeated, "Geronimo!"