Chemo Sabe ..uh.. Kemo Sabe and .. The Mod Squad?

The last infusion knocked me for a loop I was not expecting, and it made me pretty sick. I tolerated the first one so well that the second one caught me by surprise. I let people know this because in the last post I stated I would not be posting much while this was going on. Nevertheless, I did try to think of witty, amusing, and even inspiring posts I might write. My thoughts wandered over the landscape of my mind, trying to think how to make amusing the strange and indescribable feelings of chemo.

I guess I could have written about the digestive process and how the ostomy hardware would like to remove itself from your body, of its own accord, in the first days following an infusion. I ran out of the office a week ago Friday with that particular issue. Or, I could write about what feels like a volcano (of steroids) erupting through your head ... when you are trying to act normally and yet feel this mildly out of control feeling with regard to your reactions to various things and situations, and words that randomly, and incorrectly in a given context, fall from your lips - mostly due to fluctuating blood pressure and sugar levels.

Then again, there is also the fatigue, lack of sleep, memory loss, neuropathy ... No, I thought, who wants to read about that? Probably no one and, to my ear, it could be taken as complaining, which I definitely cannot complain. Others have much more on their plate, like the 7 year old I read about recently who has 9 months of chemo and radiation ahead of them. This fact causes my measly 16 weeks to sound tame in comparison. Blessings to that 7 year old.

So, instead, I go back to a magazine article I was reading during the last infusion. It appears that Peggy Lipton, of Mod Squad fame, has been undergoing treatment for colo-rectal cancer. Who knew? Her daughter, who I now really like, started calling her mom "Chemo Sabe." That's more like it. I laughed aloud and immediately adopted the name. A quick Google search informs me that this is in no way an original joke. Who cares? I think it's hilarious! So, since I have nothing funny to say myself, I decided to post something written by someone else online about the origin and back-story of Kemo Sabe (that's "Chemo Sabe" to my friends).

I will be going for my third infusion this Wednesday. This one will be 4 hours, as opposed to 3 hours. I think I'm just going to stay in the moment and experience it as it comes; notice and report. I'm more prepared for it this time, but what do we really know for sure? As I like to say, "Let's go."

In the meantime, enjoy the following because you may, like me, enjoy trivia. You can thank me the next time you are in a Trivial Pursuit match and the Lone Ranger question presents itself. (Do not ever go up against me in a game of Trivial Pursuit involving anything to do with music or pop culture. You will lose!) I'll be checking back in with you as I can. In case the author of the following wonders about an attribute, you can click here for that.

The Definitive Word on "Kemo Sabe"

We all know, or at least those of us over 30 know, that Tonto called the Lone Ranger "Kemo Sabe." Did you know that during the early radio shows the Lone Ranger also called Tonto Kemo Sabe? (It was originally spelled "Kemo Sabay") I have assumed that it was a friendly expression from one of the Native American languages, and I have found nothing to dispute this, but very little to support it. Like all good theories, one must try just as hard to disprove them as to prove them. I have asked several Native Americans about "Kemo Sabe" and they have all looked at me like I was asking them about the unified theory of the universe.

Recently my friend Fran sent me a newspaper clipping that sheds some additional light on the matter. This information came from Dave Barry's column in the New York Daily News, Saturday, June 10, 2000. Dave Barry swears that he has researched the matter and his facts are correct. According to Barry, "The original "Lone Ranger" show was created at Detroit radio station WXYZ in 1933. This explains why Tonto called the Lone Ranger 'Kemo Sabe,' a phrase that is derived from the name of a boys' summer camp in Michigan owned by the director's uncle." Now the question remains as to where the boys' camp got their name. I have read that Kemosabe in the Navajo language means "soggy bush," or "soggy shrub." I don't believe they would have named their camp "soggy bush." There are a lot of things I could say at this point, but none of them are tasteful, so I'll move along.

A search of the Internet using "Kemo Sabe" got me 80 links, and many of those had other links. Several links led me to a miniature donkey named Kemo Sabe. There are a number of commercial ventures using the name Kemo or Kemo Sabe, including one design firm. I wonder if they know about the Navajo translation. I did find out that the first use of the name Kemo Sabe was in a very early film clip where a group of six Texas rangers were ambushed and all killed but one. The surviving ranger, which is where the "lone" comes from in Lone Ranger, is found and nursed back to health by an Indian named Tonto. Tonto recognizes a ring that he gave the ranger when they were youth many years ago and calls him Kemo Sabe, as in recognition of a long lost friend. At this juncture, we can only speculate to its meaning. "Trusted friend" or "long lost friend" are plausible guesses.

I don't trust anything that Dave Berry writes, so I did some further research. In the 1930's, when the Lone Ranger show got its start, there was indeed a camp in the northern part of Michigan called "Ke Mo Sah Bee" and the name is reported to have stood for "trusty friend" or "trusty scout." Since the show got its start in Michigan, it seems logical that the name could have come from there. Could Dave Berry be right? But wait! A respected researcher at the Smithsonian Institute claims that Kemo Sabe comes from the Tewa Indian dialect where "Kema" means "friend" and "Sabe" means "Apache." Another scholar claims that in the Yavapai Indian language the word "kinmasaba" means "one who is white."

Personally, I think Tonto, who was a Mohawk, was speaking Navajo, and he was insulting the lone ranger for being ambushed (no pun intended) like an amateur. After all, The Lone Ranger was a member of the famed Texas Rangers. If Gabby Hayes had found him instead of Tonto, the phrase "Lilly Livered," or "Dag nab it" might have become famous instead of Kemo Sabe.