When I was eight years old, I met a fellow named ‘Buggers.’ I assumed that was not his Christian name, rather he was likely ‘nicked’ with it. If so, I had no wish to ask him why. I remember first seeing him walking down a paved street in our town, evidently on his way to play baseball. My conclusion was based on the fact that he had a baseball bat stuck in his back pocket as he walked along.
Now, it is not to be assumed that he had only a four inch bat, one which would fit completely into his pocket, rather it was just the first four to five inches of the handle held within, while the rest of the bat stood up like the mast of an approaching armada. Even neater than that, he had hung his mitt on the bat, so all he actually had to carry was the baseball.
Buggers was too cool for school.
He was much bigger and older than I, me eight years old and scrawny, he fourteen-years-old and bulky, so I never talked to him… at all; much less about his nickname. That was a secret he was welcomed to keep.
Had ‘Buggers’ truly been his given name, I should imagine the priest christening him would have had a fit keeping a straight face during that solemn event: I christen thee Buggers McCarty, and his laugh-shaking hand likely spilling holy water all over the wee bairn.
Likewise, unlike some families who name their children after cherished loved ones, can you imagine there had ever been a Great, Great Grandfather Buggers, or Grand’ma Buggers? It sets the mind to a tangle.
The secret is forever lost, unless some historian should choose to expend funds and effort to sort it out. I recommend he start at local baseball fields.
By far, the funniest nickname I ever heard was ‘Digger.’ Now the name in itself is not that risible, but it derived from, are you ready for this? Are you sitting down? ‘Digger’s’ father was a mortician in our town. Get it? ‘Digger’; morti… Okay, you got it.
‘Digger’ and I were contemporaries in fourth grade, but strange to say, he always looked older. By fourth grade, ‘Digger’ had five-o’clock shadow and had to shave. By seventh grade, he required monthly waxings, front and back, so his shirts would fit properly. He was a Chia plant before they became popular.
Another thing that made him seem strangely adult: he never wore blue jeans like the rest of us, always dress pants. He looked like a guy who had mis-placed his suit jacket. Well, at least he didn’t wear a tie.
But the thing that truly set him apart: he not only carried but used a handkerchief. The circle I ran in considered this to border on the scandalous. We had a perfectly efficacious means for ridding ourselves of unwanted mucous: oppose one nostril with one’s finger, then exhale sharply. Then, repeat the process for the other nostril.
If this ritual should not provide wholly satisfactory results, well, that’s why one’s shirt had sleeves. [Sleeves – in those days – were misrepresented to us kids as a sartorial adornment, when, in fact, they were accoutrements, as functional as wheels on a wagon, and not intended as ornament. Think of sleeves as a back-up plan.
The first time I ever heard ‘Digger’ blow his nose, it was in Algebra class. The blast was of such proportions that it nearly woke me up. When I did come to myself, I witnessed our instructor hurriedly ushering the class under their desks, convinced by the deafening explosion that we were under atomic attack by the Soviet Union. ‘Digger’ sat there, looking around, and re-folding his handkerchief.
In the small rural town where I grew up, there were no free-ranging elephants. Credit for this was given to ‘Digger’ who, with a few blasts into his kerchief, set animals on a mad stampede for Upstate New York where they may still be viewed in peaceful, spacious enclaves far off from thunderous explosions.
Like ‘Buggers’, I never knew what became of Ol’ Digger. But since there are no elephants roaming free here in the Roanoke Valley, I must conclude that ‘Digger’ passed through sometime back, and blew his nose, once upon a time.
Look for Lucky’s books locally and on-line: The Oath of Hippocrates; The Cotillian; A Journey Long Delayed; Campfire Tales; Sabonics; More Campfire tales; Growing Up In Stephentown; Animal Archives, The Storyteller; The Adventures of Napoleon Vol 1-2; Musings
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