Nicknames

Casey

My first nickname, and chosen by me, initially because I was enthralled with a picture book called Casey the Fireman, about the captain of a fireboat in New York City harbor. He was tall and handsome, like I hoped to be, and blond, which I already was, and he put out fires from a kind of tugboat. What could be better than that? Going to school gave me an additional  reason to keep the name - I had outgrown the book - because boys in the 50s were almost never called Christian, and when teachers called roll for the first time they inevitably asked for ‘Christine’, putting me at near-mortal risk for merciless teasing on the playground.

Windy

My father sometimes called me this and, in fact, had wanted  to give me that name when I was born. My mom vetoed the notion. Neither one told me why the name was considered (I did know it wasn’t about weather) and it’s origin remains a mystery.

Chip

Of Chip and Dale fame. My first brother was Dale. These were private names used only by us, and was the earliest agreement between us that we represented the two essential parts of the perfect person: Brains (Chip) and brawn (Dale). My brother shortchanged himself; he’s extremely smart and insightful. But the characters in their cartoons are a riot and we strongly identified with them.

Moose or Moosenheimer

I began struggling with my weight when I was thirteen. I’d been thin as the proverbial rail until then, but a diabolical combination of growth spurts, puberty and its sidekick, hormones, and collapsing arches and chronically inflamed achilles tendons collaborated to turn me into, well, someone you’d nickname moose. This was used by my father. When he was exasperated with me, I got the short form. The long version was used when he wanted me to know that, in spite of the difficulties between us at the time, he cared very much about the problems I was having..

Cwissy-Poo

This is from one of my sisters. Totally affectionate, with  enough           of a bite to remind me that just because three of her brothers had inflicted an annoying nickname on her didn’t mean she was incapable of retaliation.

Chipmunk

A glorious Norwegian girlfriend (sigh) came up with this one in my early 20s. It’s inscribed in a copy of e. e. cummings’s  collected poems she gave me, along with a mention of my ‘bright eyes’. The unwritten half of the phrase - ‘and bushy tail’ - may come to mind, but dis- cretion, even at this late date, requires I refrain from speculation on any implications from the fact.

Yellow Cap

During the wars in Southeast Asia in the 60s and 70s, I was active in a group called The Resistance. I habitually wore a yellow knit cap, and someone – perhaps thinking I should have a nom de guerre (or nom de anti-guerre?) – took to calling me this, a habit that was picked up by others.

Captain Terror

Not a compliment. Early in my career as a bookseller I worked at the store on the campus of UCLA. Much responsibility, which I exercised with great attention to detail – something I demanded the crew I supervised share. But while the demand wasn’t unreasonable, my attitude was, and until the scales fell from my eyes a couple of months later, I had this nickname.

Irish

Years laters, working at another bookstore, I indulged my long obsession with Celtic traditional music by putting it on the store sound system whenever it was my turn to choose what should played. This continued for nine years. About a year into the run             I was given this name by a couple of co-workers.

Big Fellah

An extrapolation from Irish when I turned to reading every book on the Easter Rising, and Michael Collins and all matters related, and I was tagged with the famous nickname given Collins. At one point, in a moment of whimsey, the store owners got everyone bowling shirts to wear, and this was embroidered on mine.

Oracle

My last job as a bookseller was with Borders. The company’s upper management was stunningly inept. The store where I worked, by contrast, had a hard-working and professional crew that kept the place afloat far longer than expected. Some of them had 10 - 25 years of experience, which was unusual. I had just under 40, with the accumulation of knowledge that goes with that length of service. Whenever a customer asked for a book that seemed impossible to get, the problem was given to me, and my success at meeting their need was high enough that I was tagged with this name.

Note: Epithets have not been included. If they had been been, the list would have made up a slender book held at length by a thumb and index finger.