[at-l] (Guest Post) Trail Name

[nealb at midlandstech.edu (William Neal)]

Trail Names use to be bestowed on you by your fellow hikers.  You DID NOT
pick your own name.  Those who did appeared gauche -- uncouth -- tasteless
-- tacky.:-)  Of course that meant you might get some names you did not want
to use in polite company or around small fry: "Mommie why do they call that
man Whoppers?" But once it became known you were stuck with it.

Kind of like me where a guy called me Adolf because of my mustache.  AND NO!
I DO NOT LOOK LIKE HIM!  Unless you are referring to Menjou.

Now many, if not most, pick their own name.  Mine was half and half.  I
moved slow because I like to stop and smell the roses.  And the violets.
And the ceders.  And the grass.  And you have to get low to smell the grass
and that leads to laying on it which leads to zzzzzzzzz....  So I was dubbed
Turtle.  Which several people have.  Including I believe one Bill or William
besides me.

Although for a brief period I had the nickname of Sweet William.  It was a
nickname I had at home and it had been painted on a couple of shirts for me
along with handpainted pictures:  One was a backpacker's version of Santa
Claus and one was a Wolf in a forest.  So a few people called me that before
I sent the shirts home: They were too nice to keep with me.

So take your name as it is given you and like it or come up with such an apt
name no-one can help but call you that.  But in the 2nd case be pre-pared to
be called something else.  Like it or not.

William, The "Sweet", "Swede", "Bull", Turtle

PS	In a military SF series, one marine was called "New Guy".  He hated
it and was glad when some new guys came into his unit.  Everyone kept
calling him "New Guy".  One person explained it something like "You were
born a New Guy.  You are a New Guy.  You'll always be a New Guy.  Now shut
up and get to..."

P2S	I never could get the guy who called me Adolf to stop.  I got the
rest to stop by ignoring them if they called me Adolf -- including one guy I
regularly worked for on the next shift.  He called one day and I kept
walking.  But the originator kept it up and it became a running joke between
the two of us.  Of course this method does not always work.  I know this
cute girl who when she was little got nicknamed Bulldog.  She liked it until
she began noticing boys.  Even today she is still called Bulldog.