The Ox on the Roof
I have had a lot of people ask me about my handle, so here is the story!
Le Bouef sur le Toit (The Ox on the Roof) was a 1920's French ballet by the composer Darius Milhaud. Back when I worked in the music library at University of Memphis, I registered for Geocities but couldn't come up with a username that wasn't already taken. I looked over at a stack of books that I was processing and there it was - a book entitled The Ox on the Roof. I typed it in and guess what? By some miracle, it was available!
After I had been using this name for a while, I found out where Milhaud got the name. It turned out to be pretty funny!
It seems that there was this guy living in Paris in the 1920's that had TONS of junky yard ornaments, all around and on his house. His neighbors got a petition together to make him remove all the junk. It is said that by the time the legislators got around to doing something about it, an iron calf up on the roof had grown to be an OX!
Also, a chapter of Laura Ingalls Wilder's On the Banks of Plum Creek is named "The Ox on the Roof." I even have that book at my house and didn't remember that!
