Last night on the ABC comedy The Middle, starring Patricia Heaton, youngest son Brick watched over an unhatched egg, brought it with him everywhere, covered it with a blanket at night, etc. He named the egg “Scout” before the baby chick even hatched.
The Middle is followed by Modern Family. In last night’s episode, Phil’s dad comes to visit in this super-huge RV, and brings Phil and family a dog. The dog’s name was Scout. Kyle noticed the name was the same as Brick’s baby chick and told us, but of course I was focused on the show and didn’t hear him. A couple minutes later, I realized it was the same name and said something, then found out that Kyle had beaten me to the punch.
So, I was vacuuming the living room a little while ago and my mind was wandering. I remembered reading on Twitter not too long ago that it was Harper Lee’s birthday.
Wait … Harper Lee’s birthday … Scout … and then another Scout … Is this too coincidental??? So I looked on LibraryThing (check this page, scroll down to Common Knowledge section) and verified that yesterday was Harper Lee’s birthday. We don’t watch Cougar Town so I don’t know if there was a Scout in there, too, but I’d just be really surprised if it was coincidental.
Ms. Harper Lee, how deeply your story has touched our lives and hearts, and our very culture. How wonderful that it continues to move and inspire us, fifty years later.