Dressed for one of many high school functions they attended when my father was an assistant principal: Bill and Dorothy…or…
Is it only me, or do other people ever stop and realize how infrequently we hear our own names? If you’re a parent, for example, you’ll hear whatever version of “mother” or “father” your kids use–a lot. At work, you may hear your name now and then. And if you have a good doctor or dentist, you’ll hear it several times during consultations. But in general, I don’t often hear someone say my name.
One of the enjoyable parts of getting to know Jim, Tim, and Timmy was that they not only used my name a lot, but they also used “Beck,” which is something my siblings call me, so it felt natural. And now I get “Becks” occasionally because it somehow came to be my “designer label” for the Barbie fashions. I never minded nicknames–even “Roach,” an early one–and loved being called Aunt Bebe and Aunt Pepi, first attempts from my nephews. Both my sister and sister-in-law still call me Bebe sometimes.
If you ask me things I liked about my parents’ relationship, on my list would be how they always used each other’s names, sometimes even when talking to me about the other one. “Dorothy said” or “Bill likes”–it always made me aware that they were individuals with their own lives that had nothing to do with being my father and mother. My mother didn’t like to be called “Dottie,” and only some of her siblings could call her “Dot.” She was always Dorothy. There were times I’d call her Dorothy when I was teasing her, but I don’t ever remember calling my father Bill. However, courtesy of my friend Larry H, both my parents ended up with nicknames that I could get away with using.
Larry was one of my father’s students when the television show Mod Squad was airing. Michael Cole played the character “Pete Cochran,” and I suppose since it was an uncommon last name in our community, Larry started calling my father “Pete.” The funny thing was, when my father was a kid, his father often called him Pete, so he didn’t mind it. Although I never called him Pete in front of his students–or even “Daddy,” for that matter–as he got older, I’d sometimes use the name Pete to make him smile. (And a few years after he died, Tom and I named our first dog “Pete” in his honor.)
After “Pete” caught on among Larry and my other friends, a movie starring Walter Matthau and Carol Burnett came out called Pete and Tillie. That’s when Larry began calling my mother Tillie, and she never minded it. Then again, Larry was the kind of guy who could get away with anything because he was so funny. I will never, ever forget what it meant to me to see him at my father’s funeral. I don’t think we’ve ever talked since, but he’ll always have a special place in my heart for being there, for the millions of times he made me laugh, and for the affection he showed my parents.
Larry and me.
Surely you are too young to remember Mod Squad? Or the movie Pete and Tillie?
Surely these are tales your much older siblings told you?
Larry was old enough to remember them. Was I even born?
You can really see the resemblance between you and your mom in that picture.
My parents intentionally gave me names that didn’t lend themselves to shortening, so I never really had any nicknames growing up. I always wanted one, though!
It’s funny, because I have a friend who hates to be called any kind of nickname. Maybe she was teased as a kid. But I generally got affectionate nicknames, so they didn’t bother me. (Even “Roach,” which came from Cochrane to cockroach–and there’s not much nastier than a roach!)
LOL, I wondered where Roach could have come from, but that makes sense! Amazing how kids will find any way they can to twist a name into a tease.
You look so much like your Mom, and she looks lovely — and by the way, you are in my phone as BECKS.
Thanks!
That’s because you partially created the whole design thing that morphed into Becks.
Wait, I do call you by your name, right? And your name is “Hey”, right?
Remind me–who are you?
People only hear their own names if someone is trying to get their attention, like if they’ve won the lottery or they’re about to get hit by a bus. I think you can tell a good writer from a bad writer just by how much they use a character’s name in dialogue. If a story begins something like:
“Oh, John…”
“Do you like it, Mary?”
“Do I like it? John! What a silly question!”
“Well Mary, not every woman can ride a mechanical bull.”
“Not every woman still has her Thigh Master, John.”
You know (insert reader’s name here) is in trouble!
I’ve only recently become aware of a soap opera thing, too–wherein a person includes the relationship to a person along with his/her name in dialogue.
“Brick–my mother’s husband–is embezzling money.”
“Mrs. Whitman–your aunt’s housekeeper–has had a stroke.”
“You have ruined my sister Elizabeth’s life!”
“John, my mechanical bull Ferdinand has stopped working.”