Band Geeks

I really hate to use the term “band geek” but I guess that is exactly what I was. I think the term was conceived by the football players who hung out in the jock hall at high school. They had nothing better to do than to whistle at the girls and polish the pins on their Letterman jackets. They would huddle in groups like a band of jackals and label students as they walked by:

“Stage Crew Nerd!”, “Yo, German Club!”, “AV Guy!”, “Yearbook!”, “Fat Pants!”, “Hey Oboe!”.

They were a creative bunch; picking on the various groups who were necessary to the operation of what we know as high school.

Sometimes if you had a geek role in high school but you also did something impressive, the positive and the negative zeroed things out. For instance, my best friend Chuck was also a band geek. We were geeks together since middle school but Chuck also went to State as a pole vaulter and held the record of 14’ at BHS for many years. Being a band geek (negative) and having a Letterman jacket (positive) brought him back to zero.

My wife Cheryl, who was a state gymnast, (positive), was photographed by the Bellingham Herald in her twenties as a Farah Fawcett doppelganger (positive). And yet as a camp lifeguard when she was 16, the boys all called her Gordy (negative). She had the gall once to call me a Scout Nerd; this referencing my years in Boy Scouts. I was quick to respond by saying, “Let’s not be calling me a Scout Nerd. Ok, Y rat?” This referenced her years hanging out at the YMCA.

I am exceptionally good at witty retorts.

Let’s face it, we all accept nicknames. Remember Hawkeye, Trapper, Hot Lips and Radar? How about Magnum and The Duke. I nicknamed a girl in band “Bell” because she told me she would punch the face off my head if I kept calling her Glockenspiel.

We have union shops out at work where everyone is assigned a nickname, and some are not complementary. Take for instance the two guys, Pig Eyes and Spare Parts. I also am guilty of nicknaming one of my severely overweight airplane pilot friends, “One Wing Low” because he can’t for the life of him trim his aircraft enough to make it fly level.

My poor granddog Milton Barry has so many nicknames at the house I can’t keep track; but then I have so many nicknames at the house I can’t keep track. So, when my daughter yells from the kitchen, “Hey Mookie, your dinner is ready,” Milton and I look at each other like “you or me?” We both go just in case.

I realize now that when we were young we used names as a put down; to make a joke or to make us feel superior by hurting someone else. I was one of the greatest offenders. Somewhere on the trail to where I am today, I found that it is much more pleasurable to build someone up. To make them feel good about themselves. To elevate them above myself. To make the joke about me instead of them. Starting tonight, no more sarcastic nicknames for my wife. She is walking through the living room right now.

“Yes dear, did you say something?”

“Come on Cue Ball,” she answers. “I’m going to bed.”

Hmmph . . . I may put off halting my witty retorts until tomorrow.

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