Sometime around age 11 I decided that my name was no longer working for me. “Joe” lacked flair. I needed a nickname, something memorable that would command instant respect.After careful consideration, I settled on my pick: Cobra.
Quick! Fearsome! Deadly!
And, of course: Ridiculous!
“Cobra” never caught on for me, as you might imagine. A friend offered an animal alternative, “Deer,” because, he said, “You look like one.” I didn’t think much of the suggestion (Skittish! Meek! Harmless!) and so continued as Joe or, among my high school football buddies, Rogers.
All this while guys called Squeezer, Stump, Pear, Red, Scooter, Bones, Wild Man, Wild Bill, MiniBrute, Winky and Spud crossed my path.
Then, at 25, I went to work for my first newspaper to employ computers. The log-ons tended to be some combination of first and last names, a process that had already produced, for a guy named Jerome David Oglethorpe, the memorable “jdog”: jay-dog.
I became jrog: jay-raj.
And so I remain to this day for some people, chiefly those who know me through newspaper connections. I suppose that, in the great scheme of things, it has no more flair than “Joe,” and doesn’t exactly command instant respect.
Which, come to think of it, probably makes it perfect.
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Cobra, I love it!
ReplyDeleteI think newsrooms tend to promote nicknames. Duzak still calls me "LB" when he sees me (and then corrects himself to say "LW").
Reminds me of the Seinfeld where George tried to get people to call him T-Bone (by ordering a TBone and eating it during a staff meeting).
Good thing you squashed the deer thing early on.
i still have you mentally filed as lisabee, one word... and i guess my and george's experience goes to show that you can't nickname yourself...
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