Butch and A Couple of Chrissies
Five years ago today, my good friend Joe passed away. I wrote a couple of essays about Joe at the time. One was called “Hey Butch…Get Me a Beer.” Joe’s grandfather used to say that. Joe’s family-given nickname was “Butch.”
My daughter Alexa called me one evening recently.
Christian had just come in and pointed out to her, “you don’t have a nickname for me like Ethan,” (Ethan is often called Ethie).
And so, Alexa explained to Christian how my brother Carl was called “Chrissie” because there were two Carls in the family.
My father’s name is Carl, so when my parents wanted to call my brother Carl, in order to avoid confusion, they began calling him “Chris” right out of the gate. My brother Carl was called Chris or Chrissie by our family members and most others who knew him as a kid, all his life.
And when Alexa finished explaining how her Uncle Carl got the nickname Chrissie to Christian, he pondered that and as he left the room he declared that he too would also like to be called “Chrissie.”
A good choice of a nickname in my opinion, but some big shoes to fill.
I always wanted to have a nickname growing up.
I thought having a nickname would be cool.
There were a couple of older girls who lived on the end of my street who, when I was young, called me “Curtie.”
But that really wasn’t what I was going for.
I wanted something way cooler like Dusty, or Kid, or Tex, or Chick maybe.
No, “Curtie” wasn’t going to cut it. But that is pretty common, right? You add the “ie” sound to a name and you get Joey, Matty, Patty, or even Chrissie.
Or maybe it’s a modification of your last name. Like if your last name is Knepper, they might call you “Knep”. Or maybe it’s Natale and they call you “Nat.” I think all of us in my family got called “Chris” at some time or other as an abbreviation for Christiansen. But since my brother’s family-given nickname was Chris that had the potential to cause some confusion. We couldn’t all be called “Chris.”
My dad has a cool nickname. His nickname is Mo. I asked him once how it is he got the nickname Mo but at the time he couldn’t remember. He once told me in the Boy Scouts they called him “One Chop Mo” because he could cut through a branch with an axe with one swing. Maybe the fact that my grandfather’s name was Carl as well had something to do with him being called Mo.
There were motorcycle gang nicknames like “Nails” and “Dirt.”
And organized crime has some cool ones too like “Joe Bananas,” “Scareface,” “Bugsy,” or “Ice Pick Willie.”
How about the Top Gun nicknames? “Maverick,” “Ice Man,” “Goose,” and “Hangman.”
And we can’t forget the Jersey Shore music scene nicknames like “Mad Dog,” “The Boss,” “The Big Man,” or “Miami Steve.”
Nope, no “Curties” in that bunch.
Then of course there are those nicknames that were bestowed on kids by other kids. As kids, we thought them to be harmless. Looking back maybe they weren’t always so.
Maybe they were in fact, mean.
Those would be nicknames like “Babbles” for a friend who stuttered, “Oafy Tom” for a friend who was larger and clumsier, or “Rabbit” for a friend who might have had some distinct facial characteristics.
I guess it’s true that not all nicknames are cool.
I never did get my cool nickname, though for a time back when I was still in Jersey I was being called “Little Mo” by some. And my good friend Joe or “Butch” modified that a bit, he called me “Moses.” He would always draw out the Mo part.
Maybe if I had stayed in Jersey something might have stuck.
Some years ago Savannah started calling me Spunky. That kind of stuck with the kids anyway.
And I suppose Curt is a nickname for Curtis, so I guess I had one all along.
I am still just happy it wasn’t “Curtie.”
I am sure Christian will live up to his new nickname should he choose to keep it.
Maybe we will have a couple of Chrissies in the family.
And it was nice to remember my friend Butch on this day and my brother too.
It’s hard to believe it has been this many years already.
When we were kids, thankfully the hot summers seemed to go on forever, but of course, they didn’t.
Now whole years fly by like they are just passing seasons.
And though the prayer below reminds us “it is in dying that we are born to eternal life,”
still, I miss them both.
Postscript:
I was Googling a little while writing this and I found the website of The Mob Museum in Las Vegas. On the Mob Museum website you can answer a number of questions and based on your responses they will generate a mob nickname for you. I did it a couple of times.
One time it came back Curtis “Trigger” Christiansen.
That one sounded too much like a horse.
But then another time it generated Curtis “The Gun” Christiansen.
Now we’re getting closer!
“The Gun”