Nicknames....

I wanted to title this something else but I was afraid it would give away the ending. You know how authors are. They keep you hanging as long as possible...so I'll try to do the same. Who knows, maybe someday I'll be an author too.

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

Cindy

My older sister Cindy was born in South Dakota. The rest of us tried real hard to not hold that against her but for some reason every time the conversation came around to "where are you from?" we had to laugh at Cindy. Of course it was a good-natured, "we love you laugh" but it was still a laugh. All the rest of us were born in good old Fort Worth, Texas. Cindy had the misfortune of being born during the short time my parents were trying to make a living in South Dakota. She was born in a little prairie town called New Underwood. I would hate to visit Old Underwood because the New and Improved Underwood wasn't much to see. As a side note I should say New Underwood was also my dad's hometown. It was the nearest town to the farm where he was raised.

Cindy doesn't appear to have any unfavorable characteristics from being a northern girl. She speaks with the typical lovely Texas accent we all know and love....y'all know whut I'm talkin' about, raight? She doesn't have that rosy complexion from spending too much time in the cold north wind. And most important, I have never heard her use the words, "you guys" when "y'all" would be more appropriate. What makes her different is that she isn't a native Texan. She may have lived here for all of her life, less the three months she lived in South Dakota, but that doesn't allow her to call herself a native Texan. She's a.....whatever it is they call themselves in South Dakota. She just happens to live in Texas now. The rest of us are born and bred Texans. She is just a bred Texan. There is a difference, bless her northern heart.

The situation being what it was back then was sad for Cindy. Everyone else in class at West Hurst Elementary would say, "Fort Worth, Texas" when asked where they were born. Poor old Cindy would have to say, "New Underwood, South Dakota". That just naturally put up a barrier between her and the normal people. If teachers were allowed to cuss in class back then they would have responded with, "Where the hail is that?" Of course this was back in the good old days when we recited the "Pledge of Allegiance" followed by a school prayer every day and cussing was not an acceptable practice. They would smile at Cindy and say, "that's nice" while their brains were asking, "where the hail is that?"

Luckily for Cindy there was one girl in our little town of Hurst, a suburb of Fort Worth, who also wasn't from Texas. Her dad was in the Air Force and they had moved so many times she didn't have a clue where she was from. The last place her family had lived was Turkey. Whenever the locals started giving Cindy a hard time for being from someplace as foreign as South Dakota, Kathy would let them know she was from Turkey...the country, not the small town in Texas known as the home of Bob Wills, king of Western Swing. She knew how to take the kidding pretty well. I guess all that moving into and out of different environments make for tough skin. Cindy's heart was broken in two when Kathy's family got transferred again. This time instead of going to some for off place like Turkey, the country not the small town in Texas, home of Bob Wills, they were transferred to Roswell, New Mexico....(I had never heard of it at the time). Cindy hated to lose Kathy's friendship. We had no idea that about a year and a half after Kathy's family left for Roswell, we would be doing the same thing.

As the ironies of life would have it, my dad was offered the chance to move his family to the town of Roswell, New Mexico to help install the much needed missile silos so necessary in the fight of the Cold War. He and mama made a trip out there and bought a house from looking at blueprints. Dad moved on out and started to work while we stayed behind and waited for our house to be finished. We wiled away our hours watching TV, playing cowboys and Indians, and staying up late. The ironies and surprises began to pile up against us when we finally made that move to Roswell. All of a sudden all of us were 'foreigners' in a strange land....all of us except Cindy. Now the honor of being a true Texan didn't matter at all. And to make things even more favorable for Cindy, the house my parents had built was TWO DOORS down from Kathy and her parents. Cindy came into her own when we lived out there. We loved living in New Mexico but no one loved it as much as Cindy.

When we moved back to Texas it seems like half the country had moved in while we were gone. It didn't mean so much to be a native anymore. Things weren't the same. There were a lot of foreigners living in our little town. Some as far away as Oklahoma, Kansas, and even New York. Those from New York won't ever be Texans of course but they've stayed anyway. Cindy fits right in now.

Fishing

Have you ever watched someone fish? I'm really sorry for you if you answered "yes" to that question. Maybe you should consider getting a life or something. Fishing is bad enough by itself. Watching someone fish has to be on the top ten list of most boring things to do.

When I was thirteen I decided I had been severely deprived and mistreated by my dad because I had never gone on a fishing trip. I bemoaned my situation to my old pal Harry, and found out he went fishing with his dad at least once a month. Friend that he was, he asked his dad if I could tag along on the next trip. I was so excited I went straight to Gibson's Discount Store and spent every penny I had on new fishing equipment. One dollar and fifty cents bought a cane pole, 100 yards of line, a small package of hooks, and one bobber.

Harry and his dad pulled up on a beautiful Saturday morning in a 1951 Willys Aero. Harry had been kind enough to paint his dad's Willys with dark green house paint. Harry's dad was so cool. Harry had done that as a surprise for his dad and the guy not only didn't kill Harry, he actually continued to drive the old wreck.

Harry's mom had packed us a fine lunch to take along. I felt I had died and gone to heaven. Life was so good that day I nearly teared up. We reached the Brazos River in a short time and got our gear ready for a day of satisfying fishing. Harry's dad wandered up river to practice his casting. He said he would move away from us so he wouldn't disturb our fishing. What a swell guy! Harry and I tossed our lines in the water as soon as we got those lines untangled. I guess in just under two hours we were ready to fish. You might make a note when leaving for your fishing trip to not throw two cane poles with lines, hooks, and bobbers attached into the trunk of your 1951 Willys.

Our lines were just settling into the water when my bobber disappeared. I figured I must have bought a defective one since it wouldn't float. A few seconds later my pole was nearly pulled from my hands. I had something on the line that must have been as big as a small shark. I fought that fish until Harry was tired of yelling out instructions to me. I couldn't get the thing out of the water to save my life. When my bobber disintegrated from all the thrashing around Harry dropped his pole and ran over to help. We gave that line a jerk and the scariest thing I've ever seen came up out of the water. It was a two foot long alligator gar. Not only was it firmly attached to my hook, it was about as mad as I was excited. Unfortunately, neither Harry or I had ever seen an alligator gar so we tensed up pretty quick....especially when that monster landed right between us on the bank. I dropped my pole and ran screaming up the bank toward Mineral Wells. Harry made his way the other direction and stopped screaming about Waco. Since I was headed north toward Mineral Wells I was the one to pass Harry's dad. I must have given him a brief description of the monster that tried to attack and eat Harry and me as I ran past because he dropped his gear and ran to see for himself. When I finally realized there was no way I could run forever I slowed down and made my way back to find Harry's dad releasing that ugly old thing from my line. Harry came wandering up a few minutes later with "Hey dad, what's up?" as if he wasn't afraid at all.

Since my bobber was broken and Harry was afraid he might catch that gar himself, our fishing was over for the day. We ate lunch, skipped rocks on the water, and watched Harry's dad fish. I will never ever do two things again: 1) fish, and 2) watch someone else fish.

Poor, Poor Pitiful Me...

When Debbie and I found this house twenty years ago we were looking for something with character. This house had it....lots of windows, lots of space, surrounded by mature oak and elm trees. It also had another feature I personally wanted, a lawn that wasn't just a flat postage stamp of a lot. There isn't a level place on our property except for where the house is sitting. I thought it was wonderful when we first moved in and it's been trying to kill me ever since.

Four years ago I spent a week in the hospital after Debbie found me trying to crawl from the bottom of the backyard up to the patio. I don't remember anything except getting dizzy while mowing. The backyard is especially cruel to me. My front yard is covered in shade all day and I have it pretty much whipped into shape but the back is a dispassionate and unforgiving yard. I try to avoid it as much as possible except for sitting on the patio watching the birds. I start feeling guilty though when Debbie is out tending her flowerbeds. I don't know how we can have a modest sized yard and she still has five acres of flowerbeds back there. During the growing months she is out there all day nearly every day making sure there isn't a rebellious weed or dried leaf messing with the perfectly manicured look. After watching her for a while I will stupidly go out and ask if she needs any help. She always needs help.

I used to be a scavenger for stones and used, or broken brick. This was before I tore up my leg but I had collected a decent amount of stones for use in the yard. I had them all "neatly" stacked under one of the oak trees close to my shed. Debbie decided she needed a new retaining wall in the lowest flowerbed because of some exposed roots on one of the lilac bushes. We've lived here twenty years and I'm still not through building retaining walls. Today while she worked that flowerbed she suggested I move all those stones downhill to where the new wall is needed. We worked out a schedule to make sure neither of us got too hot or dehydrated. I called it the Dr. Pepper schedule because it was 10-2-4....ten minute breaks, two hours working, quit at four in the afternoon. Now keep in mind, Debbie is sitting in a shaded flowerbed pulling weeds and working the soil. I am carrying twenty pound landscaping stones from the top of our yard (hill) down to the lowest part of the yard (hill). You would think going downhill would be easy but N-O-O-O....you have to maintain a slow, steady pace or by the time you reach the steps leading down to the bottom you are going too fast and wind up face first in Debbie's freshly manicured bed. As it turns out, the schedule for me all morning was ten minutes working, two hours resting, repeat twice, then sneak inside for a shower and nap. I'm up from my nap now and sitting in a cool, dark study writing this. Debbie is still out there. Don't bother trying to let her know by text because she left her phone sitting on the patio table....heh, heh, heh. I'm sure she hasn't noticed I'm missing. She gets in a flowerbed 'zone' and doesn't notice anything else. I've had to go out at 5:30 in the afternoon to tell her she needs to stop and come inside. After all, I don't know how to cook dinner. I drove to Fort Worth two days ago to do some shopping. I was gone two hours and she never knew. I love her flowerbeds.

After I broke my leg and hip my sons paid for a mowing crew for us. It lasted two years before I found out how much they were spending and fired the crew. I have good boys. I decided I could mow the lawn myself again and it worked out pretty well. At first, passing cars would slow down so the passengers could watch the cripple holding onto a mower with one hand and a cane in the other. In time I got strong enough to mow without the cane. The backyard still tries to get me occasionally but I laugh in the face of its efforts. I can mow the entire backyard now without a cane. I have to stop every once in a while but I can do it!! As a repercussion one day, the backyard got me back. I was walking along the lower portion of the yard admiring Debbie's largest flowerbed. I stepped onto a loose retaining wall stone and fell sideways off the wall and down into the flowerbed...with a short stop in one of the lilac bushes. I will swear if needed that the lawn laughed at me. I heard it and I'm sticking with my story.

I have suggested we sell our house and buy a townhouse or zero lot line house. I think this is a justifiable suggestion because of our age, my limited physical capacity, and my overall hatred of yard work. Debbie thinks we would get bored. I wouldn't get bored. If she got bored I'm sure our boys would love to have her work their flowerbeds.

Stained Glass...

I used to design and make stained glass windows. I gave it up because it caused my wrist and thumb to ache without mercy for days on end. I enjoyed it and still have all my tools and a large stock of unused materials. I've thought about trying it again and yesterday I was given the nudge to go ahead and try once more. A beautiful and sweet friend of ours, Penelope Elizabeth Goatsmith (we call her Peg), asked me if I would incorporate glass from the church where she grew up into two small stained glass windows. She gave me free rein on design and a long lead time....no rush, no worries. If she had added those magic words, "Money is no object" I would be planning a revised retirement plan right now but since she didn't I opted for an extra large bottle of Advil to handle the expected pain.

Peg is a wonderful friend and we love her to the moon and back. If I could I would gladly make these windows for her at no charge. Unfortunately, I will have to charge her for the cost of materials and materials are expensive. Stained glass work was the most expensive hobby I ever experienced. Of course I'm not into sailing like a couple of my distant relatives, in which case that hobby would have risen to the top of the expensive list, but still....the required materials are unique therefore expensive. Add the cost of that extra large Advil and the cost rises to a staggering upper two digits.

I've reviewed designs on the internet for minutes and minutes now and haven't found inspiration. I may have to find my old sketch book (aka yellow legal pad) and work something out. I thought about copying the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. His designs are beautiful but good grief that man must have love cutting glass! I can't really plan on a large pattern because Peg only stole...I mean, she was only given one panel of glass from the old church. What to do...what to do? I think I'll pull out my old stock of glass and use what I have, along with her panel, to create something right on the work table....oh man, that reminds me...I sold my old work table. I guess my first step will be to build a new work table. I'm thinking I better get busy. I'll keep you informed.

The Creek

There was a creek running through our town of Hurst. I have no idea if it had a name but if it did it's been bulldozed and buried along with the creek and all the pristine land running along side of it. I wish I had known the creek's name because it occupies so much of my memory.

I've told the story of the park close to our house on Elm Street. I've mentioned the trouble Glenn and I tended to get into at this park. The biggest reason we were supposed to stay away from the park is because we had to cross the creek to get there. Actually the creek was our favorite attraction. We would swing out over the creek on grapevines hanging from the old oak trees. We fished for crawdads and sometimes actually caught one or two. We waded and skipped stones. It was a wonderful pastime.

When we moved to New Mexico my parents rented out our house on Elm Street. They knew we wouldn't make Roswell our permanent home and they wanted to keep the house. It was kind of like home to us. Go figure... Anyway, we moved back to Hurst and the lease hadn't run out for our tenants. My folks found a house in a bit more "upscale" neighborhood on the south end of town for us to rent while we waited out the lease. As luck would have it, the creek....same creek, ran less than a hundred yards from this house. It took no time at all for Glenn and me to reintroduce ourselves to those muddy waters.

The creek on the south end of town was much more rugged than where we were used to playing. There were drop-offs into the water, deep areas, and lots of trees hanging overhead. It was actually a fairly dangerous place for kids to play. We loved it. In a matter of days we had the entire length of it between Redbud Drive and Woodland Avenue memorized. Because of the depth of the water and the oncoming cold weather we were a bit slow in getting soaked to the bone. I think it was about a week before I convinced Glenn, with a gentle nudge to his back, to take a jump. Luckily, the spot we chose for his little fall was fairly shallow. He managed to walk out of it, slipping and going under only twice. He chased me good-naturedly all over the neighborhood with that little shrieking thing he used to do with his voice. He kept repeating something about killing me slowly if he caught me. He was so much fun.

We never found any crawdads in this part of the creek. It was too hard being patient with a piece of string tied around a bit of bacon when the banks were so steep and slippery. What we did find was a path along the creek beaten down by what we figured must have been early explorers or grizzly bears. The path ran right along the edge of the creek. If you weren't familiar with the area it would be really easy to fall off and into the water. Glenn and I could walk it blindfolded within a week.

As the winter wore on my cousin Mike came for a weekend visit. It was bitterly cold on that Saturday morning. Sleet was falling off and on and we naturally thought we better go check out the creek. If there was ice on it we wanted to test it out. There was a thin layer of ice forming, about as much as we ever see on a body of water in Texas, but there was no way we could get on it. We were at a loss as to what we would do for fun. I thought for a minute and then challenged Mike to a race. First one to reach the bridge on Woodland Ave would not be a loser. I took off with Mike right behind me and Glenn right behind Mike. About forty yards or so into the run we came to the first of many cutouts, or washouts, in the path. The water was amazingly deep in each one of these cutouts for some reason but the deep water was nothing compared to the distance you fell before hitting the water. This first cutout was only about four feet across and I easily cleared it. Mike didn't know about it so one minute he was hot on my heels and the next he vanished.

In my defense I did have a fleeting feeling of guilt as I flew over the cutout. There was the possibility Mike wouldn't notice it in time...especially since Glenn or I neither one had mentioned it....and in fact, somewhere deep in my sub-conscience I planned it to turn out that way, but I did regret it some. As I turned around and saw Glenn looking down into those freezing waters and reaching for Mike I felt downright remorseful. But, think about it. Mike was going at such a pace that his feet ran out of dirt before his body got the message to stop. He didn't free fall into the creek. He more or less ricocheted from one wall of dirt to another until he finally hit the water. Had he been a steel ball in a pinball machine it would have sounded like, PING PING PING PING SPLASH!

I have to say, mainly because Mike never will, that he was about as funny as I've ever seen him. Did you know that freezing mud is really hard? Mike must bruise easily too. With purple bruises and blue lips he was a sight to behold. It was so funny I laughed while Glenn and I fished him out. I laughed all the way through the wooded area back to our house and I laughed as we walked into the kitchen and told the story to Mama. I sensed I might be in trouble when she didn't laugh with me but I knew her spankings never hurt. However, my Dad had taken a rare Saturday off and was sitting in the den and thinking to himself, "Boy I sure feel like spanking somebody today. Maybe Rusty will screw up." I made his day...

656 Elm Street

We were so cotton-picking rich growing up we felt sorry for most of our friends. Our house had real brick on the front of it and it was the biggest house we could ever imagine. It had to be at least 900 square feet. It was huge I'm telling you! Friends and neighbors described our house as the one on the street with all the trees. My dad loved planting trees. Every time he saw a sale on trees another one was planted in our front yard. Of course no two trees were alike. That would have been boring. Mowing the lawn in our yard was a unique experience. We felt sorry for the poor neighbors around us who walked back and forth with their mowers cutting grass in the hot sun. I don't know how they didn't fall asleep behind the mower. We never went more than a few feet in a line before getting to go around another tree. The yard was always shady. We were so darn rich!

My dad worked up to three jobs to make sure we had everything we needed growing up. Oh sure, the other kids would show up at school with their P.F. Flyers but you could buy those anywhere. It took creativity and lots of shopping skill to find tennis shoes for under $2.00 a pair. We were spoiled I tell you. My dad was an electrician at the defense plant. He also sacked groceries at the Worth Food Store in Haltom City and as more and more kids needed $2.00 tennis shoes he cleaned floors and toilets at the Glenview Community Hospital. We felt sorry for our friends whose dads only had one job. We couldn't understand how grown men could be so lazy to quit working at five in the afternoon. If our dad got home before ten at night we worried he must be sick.

One day in June, I believe it was in 1956, my dad came home with the station wagon loaded down with something. We knew it was Glenn's birthday so we figured the favorite son had scored big time. As it turned out dad had been shopping for Glenn's birthday but the White's Auto Store wouldn't let him charge a toy wheelbarrow and shovel so he went ahead and bought new bicycles for Cindy and me. That way the wheelbarrow and shovel would be a high enough amount to warrant setting up an account. For years after that all our birthday and Christmas gifts came from White's Auto Store. We were glad they sold more than auto supplies.

Yep, we were so cotton-picking rich. We never knew most people measure wealth by how much money they have.