I will not relent when it comes to my family history. I made that clear in my last post when a public figure pronounced the first name of Revolutionary War hero Casimir Pulaski as “Cashmere.”

I wasn’t the only one who was honked off about it. My sweetheart, Todd, who has some Polish blood in him, was quite offended. His mother was also displeased. My mother saw the Fox 11 segment where Casimir’s name was mispronounced and corrected it while her mouth was full of scrambled eggs.

I was convinced my ire was justified. I still am, despite the retribution after—or perhaps emboldened by it.

I expected there would be some kind of response to my less-than-accommodating piece on family pride and how mispronouncing a person’s name brought up questions on how well someone knows the history of said. The response was not all that surprising, but it was disappointing.

There are two healthy and rational ways that folks in Pulaski, Wisconsin, could have responded to my statements. One way would have been to realize the mistake and offer an apology. Learning from errors is how we grow, and I certainly could forgive someone willing to improve themselves and speak truth to history.

If, by chance, the officials behind Casimir Pulaski Days didn’t offer an apology, another acceptable and mature behavior would have been to approach me and debate why they thought they were right. It would have given me a chance to show my sources, talk about how the Pulaski side of my family drilled the ancestral history into my head and explain how ignoring even minor details about history can be harmful.

Neither of these played out. Instead, officials decided to be completely childish and vindictive by having me ejected from a bar. The action showed not only ignorance but arrogance, as well, which evolves into stupidity when mixed together.

The festival with a jigsaw puzzle contest, which looked like an interesting new craze for the area. The puzzles had figures and icons from history, and the event also had a taco bar.

Sadly, I soon discovered that the inability to pronounce Casimir’s name correctly was not limited to Jaime Lee when not one, but two people talked about “Cashmere” while on a microphone. These were residents of Pulaski, so you would think they would know the proper pronunciation, but that turned out not to be the case.

The venue also had one television proclaiming it was “Casmir Pulaski Days.” There’s not an I in team, but there are two in “Casimir.” I shook my head at the sight.

The day after the puzzle contest, I drove to Wicka’s Bar for a polka music jam, curious to try another new experience. Since there hadn’t been anyone bringing up my blog post about Casimir, I figured either no one with the festival had seen it or folks were just opting to ignore it.

Then I walked into the overcrowded bar, realizing the packed conditions might making taking photos and enjoying the music difficult. I only had about five seconds to chew on that thought when one of the festival organizers—one of the people who mispronounced the name, no less—and told me that I was going to have to leave because she had seen my “blogs.”

I have one blog. It was one blog post, so using the plural indicates that it’s not just pronunciation she has an issue with—it’s arithmetic, too.

That was a bit amazing to witness, as the local school district has a four-star rating on its report card. Maybe the next generation will get things right.

The incident wasn’t worth getting into an argument about, so I left. However, it made it abundantly clear that not only was getting pronunciation correct an issue, so was admitting when you’re wrong.

It’s almost like the people involved with the festival would prefer to live in ignorance, as though ignorance was some mansion. These people are saying, “Oh, this place is so spacious and comfy, and it has everything we could ever want. I don’t think we’ll ever leave.”

Ignorance is not an excuse for ignoring facts. The name is pronounced KA-zi-meer Pə-LAS-kee, and I’m not going to back down from my stance on the matter, no matter how many bars I get thrown out of. By the way, I don’t do a lot of drinking to begin with, especially now that my medications wouldn’t mix well with alcohol, so the incident wasn’t devastating, just childish.

As America’s 250^th birthday is on the horizon, I can only hope that enlightenment eventually comes to Pulaski, and that the ignorant people will realize that my beloved ancestor, the father of the United States cavalry, is a hero—and not a sweater.