In light of the current assignment it seems appropriate to include “Bulldog” as part of it, even though it is the first story I wrote for this class. 

During my growing-up years I was called by many nicknames, but they never stuck for long, for less than a day and were long ago forgotten. I remember a classmate in my first year in college. His name was Jack Jennings. From our first meeting he called me by a famous name. I don’t know why. Perhaps he needed a crutch to help him remember my name. The famous name he chose was Donald Duck, the famous Disney cartoon character. At any rate Jack continued the name for weeks, then he dropped the first part that pertained to my real name and I became to him simply Duck. I don’t recall others using the name so when I heard “Duck!” yelled behind me I didn’t bend my head down; I waited for Jack to catch up. Jack didn’t come back the next year and the nickname faded into oblivion.

My most likely nickname couldn’t be in question. Most all the guys I worked with were known by their last names and if the name had more than one syllable it likely got shortened. How does Jess sound? A friend had his own nickname for me. He called me R&D, his variation on my initials, but normally short for research and development, the kind of work I normally did.

The oddest nickname I had ever heard up to the time I learned that her real name was Idyle Faire Wells was Tump, my mother’s sister. Everybody called Tump “Tump”. I may have heard of someone who called her Idyle but I can’t recall who. She tried to direct me to call her Aunt Idyle but it didn’t work. All I ever heard people call her was Tump.

How did a good-natured sweet school teacher aunt get a non-word nickname like Tump? I can only report what my grandma told me. Back when Idyle was a little tot, even sweeter than as a teacher and just learning to talk, Grandma was bestowing sweet nothings on her baby. Among the nothings was “You’re Mama’s little sugar lump.” She must have said it more than once so when baby tried to repeat sugar lump it came out tump. Word soon spread through the family and elsewhere what the cute little girl was soon calling herself, and before anyone realized it the baby became Tump. And so it would remain for the rest of her days. The nickname brought her no unpleasant memories, unlike those that “Bulldog” had brought to me.