Names

Names of new friends and how we deal with those names reminds me of my home town. You see, my home town (Lime Springs, Iowa) was a Welsh ghetto in the early to mid-1900s.

In case you're not aware, the Welsh are not very creative when it comes to names. The surnames Jones, Hughes, Thomas, Roberts, Williams (and Barb would add Vaughn) and probably a few others would cover 75% of the population. And they were no more creative with first names, so even having the same first name and last name was not uncommon.

My great grandfather, for example, was William Williams. And I knew at least one Tom Thomas. So how did one keep all these folks straight?

Nicknames, of course. Names like "Crazy John" and "Cross Eyed Bill" (yep, not politically correct these days, but it was used, it worked, and it was true) and "Pump Man Bill" and "Bobby Short." These are the folks I grew up with!

The same system works here at Rockport 35 RV Park. We've long had "Colorado Bob" and "Wyoming Bob."

This year, we've been forced to expand our repertoire. Now we have "Canadian John and Barb" and "English John and Barb." And we have "Bernie's Barb." See how well it works—three Barbs and not a question about which one you mean!

We haven't settled in on definitive "titles" for all the Rons yet. But for Pat and I, "Sandy's Ron" and "Sylvia's Ron" work for those two.

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