Commentary by Donna Monday
If you’ve read my columns you know I love names. I like pretty names, strange names, interesting names. You name it. Today I’d like to introduce you to a married couple, a mechanic and a cashier with memorable names.
The couple is the Browns, owners of M&M Auto Service on Deandra Drive. I’d known Marvin Brown for years through the car business but couldn’t remember his wife’s name.
“It’s easy to remember,” he said. “I’m Marvin, and she’s Gaye. Together we are Marvin Gaye.”
They met because Gaye needed her car repaired. She got a fixed car, a great deal and a groom. They were married 27 years ago at Zionsville Town Hall by then clerk-treasurer Bev Harves. Ralph London, who owned the Friendly Tavern, provided free champagne at their reception.
Gaye says she “didn’t even know until we already had plans to marry that I was 12 years older than he was. I guess I was a cougar before it was popular.”
Cougar or not, it worked.
The mechanic is Mike Hood. He’s spent a lot of years under one hood or another. I asked him if he thought he’d have been a mechanic if his name hadn’t been Hood.
“I don’t think that had anything to do with it,” he said. The reason he got interested in mechanics was pure necessity. “We had five boys in the family,” said Mike, adding that there wasn’t a lot of money.
“Buying me a car was not an option,” he says. If he wanted a car it had to be a “fixer-upper.” And he had to do the fixing up.
His first car was a Pinto. Maybe that was a portent of things to come. Mike is a Ford Certified Master Technician and has driven to Pearson Ford from Rushville five days a week for 30 years (58 miles each way).
Priti Thakkar is the cashier, and she works at Walgreen’s in Zionsville. Her name is pronounced “Pretty,” which makes her a pretty Priti. She and her husband, Jignosh, are from India, but both have become American citizens.
“I remember the date,” she said, “July 1 at the Ben Harrison Home.”
Her two-year-old daughter is named Prachi. Together they are Priti and Prachi.
Priti says she and her husband moved to Zionsville “to provide a good education for our daughter.” They live in Royal Run.
Donna Monday is a Zionsville resident and columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].
