What Happened to Nicknames?

Nicknames

Did anybody except me ever wonder what happened to nicknames? I live right here in the Heart of Dixie, home to the great tradition of nicknames and hardly ever hear a good or even bad nickname any more. When I was a kid living in the Free State of Winston a politician would not get very far without a good nickname. James “Big Jim” Folsom, Jack “C.C.” Owens, Ben “Uncle Ben” Dodd, “Cotton Tom” Heflin and many more ran successful campaigns in large part because they were just good ole boys the people could trust. Ty ‘the Georgia Peach’ Cobb, “Slingin Sammy” Baugh, Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlain, Walt “Sweetness” Peyton and many others ruled the world of sports.

There is just something you like about someone with a nickname. In my world I can remember the boys and men having great nicknames, certainly ones that were commonly used in the community. We had some for a few girls but you wouldn’t say them in front of your mother so I don’t consider them legitimate nicknames. Nicknames were not always shorter than the proper name. Tab Partain was known to most as ‘Tabulator’. Many of my dad’s buddies passed on using his real name, Jack, and called him ‘no-buttons’, a handle derived from the fact he ran a laundry and some of their shirts were sometimes returned sans buttons. In that, the greatest generation, in our small town alone there was ‘Slick’ Long, ‘Spike’ Dobbs, ‘Cotton’ McCellan, ‘Son’ Drake, ‘Top’ Dobbs, ‘Bubba’ Scott (who my son is named after) and ‘Rut’ Rutledge just to name a few. There was nothing demeaning or ugly meant by using a man’s nickname it was just a way of life. In thinking I have come to consider it as another sign of closeness and familiarity we have lost in this generation. People that did not know you called you by your proper name and only those who really knew you used the nickname.

My generation had not reached the degree of complication and separation we have today so we just naturally picked up on what our fathers started. In my small high school with the staggering number of 57 in my senior class we had a wealth of names. Jim ‘Monk’ Roberts, whose nickname I never knew the origin of even though we were close. Ray Joe ‘Pano’ Cagle whose name came from someone’s determination that a shirt he wore at least one day was made from the same material panties were fashioned from. Bobby ‘SOB’ Masdon, who because he grew up with two older brothers and a sister, in a neighborhood where most all the kids were older than him and continually kept him at the point of tears in his early life that he was dubbed ‘SOB’ as short for sobbing. We were almost out of high school before be even realized what the initials stood for to a lot of people. We had Teddy ‘Screw’ Driver and James ‘Cotton’ Postell. We had Larry ‘Big Daddy’ Barron, Jerry ‘Chigger’ Wilson and Jimmy ‘Chinck’ Wilson. The Wilson boys you could not use their nicknames to their face because it would shorten your life but alone in a watermelon patch without them around you would utter their nicknames to make you feel a little braver. Although I neither have the time or space to include all in my generation I would feel bad if I did not remember Wayne ‘Beef’ Crumpton, Robert ‘Stud’ Blake and Stanley ‘Stretch’ Thornton. I must also include some of my closest friends with multiple nicknames. James Cecil Long was ‘Geese’ or ‘Goose’ until the early part of Junior High when he lost a lot of weight and really slimmed up to then become known as ‘Skinny’. Jimmy Kent Israel who grew up with two brothers and a slightly older uncle also had two nicknames during this time. Jimmy Kent is still known to me as ‘Kibo’ or ‘Nat’. I think his Uncle Dicky had a lot to do with this confusion.

Two more categories I only have time to touch on are important. The nicknames you had for teachers and other adults that could only be used in secret and certainly not in front of these centers of influence. We had F.A. ‘FA’ Harvey, a principle from the early days of our education. We had Ted ‘Willy Dogan’ Logan, a much beloved assistant coach. The afore mentioned H. L. ‘Bubba’ Scott who for some reason we named ‘Hand Jive’ or simply ‘Jive’ in the darker days of preseason practice. Bill ‘Skin’ Hyde another coach who went on to an outstanding career and the unforgettable ‘Flab’ Babcock a band director that allowed me into our marching band while I was in the third grade and unable to play a note, simply because even at that age I was big enough to wear a uniform. My mother let me march in the band but I couldn’t play an instrument or ride the bus to events, which really hurt my pride.

I think if I ever run for office I will run as Jack ‘The Ripper’ Norman. Pretty catching.