How many of you out there have had a nickname sometime during your life? Show of hands? Really? I thought there would have been more. I've had a few.
The subject of nicknames came up last week when I was visiting with a couple of old friends. One of the guys I remember as being called "Butch" by his late wife so when I walked up I said, "Hi Butch". The second guy looked surprised and said, "Hey, when I was growing up my nickname was Butch! I really blew him away when I admitted my nickname as a child was also Butch. Talk about three goobers standing around slapping each other on the back and saying "Butch" over and over. Someone said we should start "The Butch Society". After a moment though we decided that was a terrible idea.
I struggled with my early nickname because I was anything but a "Butch" kind of guy. Skinny and pale along with clothes that were always too large or two small made me a candidate for several other nicknames other than the one my dad assigned me. I think he must have had higher expectations for me. It wasn't until we moved to New Mexico during the sixth grade that daddy gave up on the nickname for me. Several families from my dad's company were transferred the same time we were and one of the men was a good friend of my dad's. His name was Jim. Jim came out early like my dad had done and started to work before his family moved out. Jim was a big, muscular, crew-cut wearing, macho type of guy. We had him over for dinner one night and my dad introduced us. "This is my wife Blanch, my oldest daughter Cindy, my oldest son Butch...." That's as far as he got because Jim couldn't stop laughing. He tried to not laugh but laugh he did. It went like this: "Butch? Did you say Butch? Har Har...oh I'm sorry....nice to meet you Butch...snicker snicker snicker." I never heard that name again.
In fairness, my dad did try to come up with a more appropriate name for me but eventually gave up and called me 'Rusty', which is what the rest of the world already called me. I'm glad he settled on that because I did not want to be called "Grandma Moses", "Whistle Breeches", or "Slug". Rusty was just fine.
I tried to convince the world my name was Russell when we moved back to Texas. I thought Rusty sounded a bit immature. I was pretty successful at school because nobody remembered me. Most of my relatives still call me Rusty and that's okay. I kind of like it now. 'Russell' didn't work for me for long because in 1963 I got a new nickname that stuck until I graduated from high school.
In 1962 an artist named David Rose came out with a song that became really popular. It was called "The Stripper". If you don't remember it go to YouTube and type in "David Rose - The Stripper". You'll like it. I loved it and so did most of my friends. By the fall of 1963 we were all trying to learn how to play it on our horns (we are band people don't you know). One of the guys played trombone which is the lead for the song. During a lunch break one day a few of us were hanging around the band hall and he started playing it. Hey, it was just us guys in there so I started acting like I was the stripper. Boy oh boy, I have no idea where my inhibitions went. It wouldn't have been so bad had the band director not been sitting in his office watching. Eventually he started clapping and all desire to mime a stripper was gone. Everyone laughed and one of them said, "Way to go Gypsy Rose". From that day on I was "Gypsy". On the night before graduation some of us were going out and a car load of guys came by to pick me up. They drove up, laid down on the horn and yelled, "HEY GYPSY, COME ON". I took off out the door as fast as I could with my dad following behind wanting to know "What's this Gypsy thing they're calling you"? He had to drop his paper and get up out of the chair before he could chase me so he didn't catch me before we took off. He never asked about it later. I guess he wasn't that interested.
If you ever decide to give someone a nickname please be selective and use a name fitting the personality. Try to avoid the following unless they truly express the personality of the individual.
Don't use these:
- Grandma Moses
- Whistle Breeches
- Slug
- Windy
- Glob
- Dunderhead
- Molasses
- Lardball
- Fencepost
- Phartbuster
- GYPSY
I'm sure there are more but I've never been called any others.....not that I was called all of these...no no no
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