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Dalton
Roberts |
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PET NAMES HAVE POWER AND BEAUTY
Peggy Goldtrap in Florida wrote a column about touching at the same time I was writing one in Tennessee. Strangely, part of her column spun me off in a new direction of realizing the importance of all the “pet names” we pick up over our lives. I think they are called “pet names” because when someone lovingly bestows their own special name on you, you feel like a dog that is being petted. Here is the poem she quoted by Donna Swanson:
How long has it been since someone touched me? Twenty years I’ve been a widow. Respected. Smiled at. But never touched. Oh God, I’m so lonely. I remember Hank and the babies. How else can I remember them but together? Hank didn’t seem to mind if my body thickened and faded a little. He loved it and he loved to touch it. And the children hugged me a lot. Oh God, I’m lonely! God why didn’t we raise our children to be silly and affectionate as well as dignified and proper. They drive up in their fine cars. They come to my room to pay their respects. They chatter brightly ad reminisce. But they don’t touch me. They call me Mom or Mother or Grandma. Never Minnie. My mother called me Minnie. So did my friends. Hank called me Minnie, too. But they’re gone. And so is Minnie.
You can feel as you read these poignant words that losing her “pet name” hurts most of all. I think I know why. The loving names people give us capture emotional slices of something important to us at different stages of our lives. When her husband spoke the name “Minnie,” it conveyed intimacy. When I was a small boy growing up around Watering Trough with a head full of blonde hair, adults in our neighborhood called me “Cotton.” I still love that name because neighbors were close in those days and I could hear the love in their voices. When I became the oldest active picker playing nightclubs in this area, a musician started calling me “Dada,” and many local musicians still do. Nightclub musicians don’t respect a lot of things beside a clean place to sleep so being called “Dada” rings good for me. It’s also fun to bestow names on yourself that express some trait of your being. When I rant at someone, I am Rev. Buster Brimstone. When I am disgustingly sweet with someone I become Moe Lasses. When I am into the mystical, all wise part of my being I suddenly become “Rahma Dada Straddlenostrum.” There is heavy significance in that name. “Nostrum” is a panacea, much like the kind sold off the back of those old-time medicine wagons in between magic tricks. So in adopting this name, I am admitting I do not have cures for everything but at least I am straddling them like a rodeo rider straddles a bucking bull. You are better off listening to a person who is straddling the questions and trying to wrestle out sensible answers than you are with a jaybird who claims to have all the answers. Sometimes a circumstance or situation will stick a name on someone. We called my father “Fos” after Dick Tracy’s famous detective. He was quite adept at checking out your stories. One day when there was a fire in the house and he charged through the smoke to extinguish the source of the fire, naturally he became “Fearless Fosdick.” When one of my friends reached the ripe age of 80 and had retained his congenial disposition, I was philosophizing with him one night and making the point that America is missing a lot by not respecting their elders like the Asian nations. I said, “After 75 everyone with a good disposition and a wise head should be called ‘Honeydipped.’” From that time we have called him “Honeydipped.” “Honeydipped “ keeps getting sweeter and wiser. So select pet names thoughtfully. People tend to become like their pet names.
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