I come from a family...well actually I have a father that for one reason or another is not satisfied to use a person's actual name...he always has a nickname. That has made life around the house ever since I can remember somewhat interesting because quite frankly...no one was immune.
I was NEVER just Thom or Tommy...nope. On a good day I might be Thomas Olin (my middle name) spoken as one single word: Thomasolin. But normally I was Isaiah, Zacchaeus, Bubby-Boy and honest to God he called me Shit-Head for a long time...especially around my friends.
My mother's latest nickname every morning when Dad gets up is "Miss Daisy" though sometimes it's miss Peabody...an old standby. My son is FROGGY, daughter...Chelser, Chelsea Bleu or Chelsea Cheeseburger. It was easy for him to come up with one for K-Sue since she is from Holland: DUTCH...she happens to be full blooded Dutch as well with both of her parents immigrating from the Netherlands after the WAR (WWII).
Needless to say...I have been exposed to this "name thing" all of my life so I have picked up on it as well...an example being Kim's daughter Mackenzie is now Mackaroo or Mackey to me and never her plain "ole name" as it were.
The thing in all of this is all my life I was a kid who wanted a cool nickname...not one of my fathers (Shithead! Are you serious?!!) but something my friends would give me or a football coach...never happened.
Then through a bizarre situation during a week long work seminar a flustered seminar group leader unwittingly laid a nickname on me...
There were a group of 6 or 7 of us that were sent to a seminar/learning week to study the Toyota Production System and Lean Manufacturing. The week started off in an auditorium setting, there were a hundred or so folks there. We were at tables facing the speakers and they provided us with these folded cards that stood up in front of us on the table so the speakers/leaders/lecturers could see our names. So I wrote my name, THOM down on the name card and put it out front of me.
Well the leader of the whole weeks activities could not get it through his Hard-Head that my name was Thom and not THOR. Needless to say all week long this poor guy called me THOR...he was psyched out and couldn't help himself. Finally on Thursday I got a new card and wrote THOR on it and miraculously he called me THOM!
Needless to say my buddies from Herman Miller who attended this with me had a freaking field day all week calling me THOR at the bar after hours, teasing me and this guy about it mercilessly.
So now my dear readers you know exactly HALF of the story how I got my blog/pen name THORMOO. The Moo prt actually is a story that belongs to another person...perhaps one day I will but at this point in time, I do not feel at liberty to share her story.
Hammer Head is a self given name I call myself because I can be a complete Hammer-Head about so many things. So that is my interesting (or NOT!) little ditty tonight about the significance of nicknames in my family....Hoped you enjoyed it, haha.
This is awesome :) And so randomly posted, too! Sometimes it's hard for me to keep track of which posts of yours I read and which not, and I would have hated to miss this one.
ReplyDeleteIt also reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld when George tries to get everyone to call him T-Bone, but ends up stuck with Koko and Gammy...
Thank You Chris, I appreciate it. I have no idea where this stuff comes from sometimes...it seemingly appears FROM NOWHERE!
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