Nicknames

Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd

One thing about your childhood and your adolescence... when it's over, it's over and, in essence, it should stay over. Michael Jackson never understood this and he spent the rest of his adult life trying to, in effect, "fix" what he felt was broken in his childhood. Most people don't do that, but they do carry past hurts and humiliations with them into their adult lives and they make everybody they meet pay for it... people who had nothing to do with it.

In my case (one case, anyhow), there was a nickname. One thing you should know about me is that I hate nicknames and I always have. I liked my name... the one my mother gave me that is on my birth certificate is just fine. It has five letters, it's easy to pronounce, and I never had a problem with it. I had relatives who found it necessary to add a "y" to it. While I couldn't do anything to my relatives, the quickest way to get into a fight with me then and now would be to call me "Keithy". I hated it.

My grandmother was from the south and she had a peculiar way of calling my name, which sounded like she was saying "Keith A.", A. being my middle initial (it's stands for Albert, just in case anyone was curious). To some of my cousins, I jokingly became "Keithay"... One cousin still calls me that to this day, in jest, but I don't mind it.

However, the one nickname that I hated the most was a name I was given in high school that lasted until I graduated. I will not reveal the nickname here but I hated it. It was given to me in the 10th grade during a snowball fight. I had on a cheap pair of gloves. The material was so cheap that the snow and ice were freezing my hands so there was really was no reason to have the gloves on. I would have been better off throwing the snow with my bare hands.

Well, this guy yells out the nickname that would follow me throughout high school and it was actually the name of a Chicago gangster (not Al Capone) who had long been dead. Everybody laughed, including me. I had no idea that this nickname would become synonomous with me... but it did and it stuck.

By the time I was a senior in high school, some of my teachers were referring to me by this nickname too. My mother always told me that you are the name that you answer to... so, I should have nipped that in the bud right there and refused to answer to it. Maybe, it just wouldn't have mattered at all. Sometimes a name catches on like wildfire and there is nothing you can do about it.

Bank robber, Charles "Pretty Boy " Floyd hated his nickname, which was given to him by a prostitute who was impressed with his looks and the impeccable way he dressed. When shot down by the FBI in 1934, agents ran up to him, leaned down, and asked him.. "Are you Pretty Boy Floyd?" He answered, "I am Charles Arthur Floyd" and then he died.

"Baby Face Nelson", whose real name was Lester Gillis, hated his nickname too and no one dared call him that to his face. It was a nickname cops gave to him because even at 26, He was short and looked like a little boy. He never liked it or answered to it. He prefferred to be called "Big George Nelson" , but nobody ever called him that either. The man killed three FBI agents in 1934 before he himself was gunned down. When asked who the body belonged to at the local morgue, his wife , who came to claim it, said "Lester Gillis." Nobody knew who she was talking about until a cop said, "That's Baby Face Nelson." Then, everybody knew.

The year I graduated, I won a few awards... the Coaches Award for Athletic Excellence and a few others. When my name was called, there was a hush amongst my classmates. They had been calling me by this nickname for three years and only a handfull of them actually knew my "government" name, as the young people say today.

When I left high school, that nickname was buried there. No one in college called me anything other than my real name. My wife doesn't even know about this nickname. I went through the Air Force known by my actual name and I left it at that.

You can imagine how mortified I was a few weeks ago when I was sitting in bar and restaraunt with two female co-workers enjoying some hot wings, a couple of cold beers, and catching the Sixers game, when two of my friends from that era (who, by the way, did not go to high school with me and only knew me by that name because they had heard someone else call me that)walked in and sat with us. They were a tad bit inebriated and very talkative... especially one of them.

They began regaling these two women with tales from my "colorful" past... some of it complete fabrication and some of it was only partially true. Then, they began calling me by that name... that dreaded nickname. Naturally, these women were fascinated and here was a whole side of me that they didn't know. The thing was, I didn't know this side either... and neither did the storyteller. Since these guys and the women were drunk, talking out of their heads, and no one was getting the hint that not only was I embarrassed but they needed to shut up, I endured and it was high school all over again.

In high school though, I never told anybody to shut the hell up and I never said that I didn't prefer being called by that nickname. I still didn't tell anyone to shut up, but I made it clear to all involved that I prefer being called by my given name. This was news to them and one guy just couldn't let it go. He told the women that most women called me "Keith" and that the "brothas" called me by my gangsta nickname. I reiterated that everybody calls me Keith and that was what I preferred. He wasn't hearing it, but the other three kinda got the message and caught the vibe. The matter was dropped and I have dug up the ground and buried that name again. Hopefully, it will never to be revived.

I never said that, at times, I couldn't be petty. For some people, a name is all they have. There are thousands of people who can't stand their birth names and hide behind a middle name or hide behind a nickname... but, I am not one of them.