A Failure To Communicate
“What we’ve got here is…failure to communicate.” [Strother Martin, playing the prison warden in Cool Hand Luke]
Reading Jack’s post at the Grumpy Forester, Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou Working about the misadventures of Howard “Cookie” Krongard, state Department Inspector General, and his brother, Alvin “Buzzy” Krongard, I was struck by the thought that the only people who still use childhood nicknames when they qualify for Medicare are trailer trash and Ivy League grads [Princeton in the case of the Krongards], two groups that have a rather difficult time growing up and acting like responsible adults.
[Note: you don’t have to be Southern or poor to be trailer trash, an amazing percentage locally are from the Midwest with good, hardworking families who try to make amends for the problems caused.]
6 comments
Interesting observation and after some moments of reflection probably as good a starting point in assessing someones personality or lack thereof as any other rule of thumb. You could be wrong but I think the odds are with you.
I know I would feel rather silly if people addressed me even by my college nickname, because the context for the name is missing.
I notice that many politicians, however, stick with nicknames for another reason — because they do not like their given name and/or feel that their nickname has better political connotations. Thus Charles “Buddy” Roemer II ran for governor of Louisiana as “Buddy” Roemer because “Charles” seems rather imperial for a politician. Piyush “Bobby” Jindal ran for governor as “Bobby” Jindal because Piyush, well, that’s one of them furriner darky names isn’t it? William Jefferson Clinton ran for President as “Bill” Clinton because, well, “Bill” is someone that you meet down at the bar, “William” is some artsy-fartsy fairy type, y’know?
But people who retain nicknames like “Cookie” or “Buzzy”… well, unless they’re a Keebler Elf or a Navy aviator, probably isn’t saying much for them, I guess.
As for me, I have no childhood nickname, or at least none that anybody has ever dared mention to my face. Harumph!
Weellll, when you get into Southern politics you aren’t far removed from trailer trash.
I am not at all far removed from trailer trash. I ceased to be trailer trash, not when my trailer-resident parents died, but when Hurricane Rita blew down all the trees around the trailer in 2005, after which I sold it to a neighbor. So I’m second-generation trailer trash… educated trailer trash… and proud of it.
I grew up with a guy named Cookie as an upstairs neighbor. I miss him. I’m pretty sure Cookie was gay, as was our landlord who lived with him, even though they had pictures of nekkid wimmen on their walls because being “out” was not cool for working people in those days. But both of them were Democrats, so everything was OK. We all got along, and had great backyard parties, together with the linotype operator and his family next door. I miss them all, Cookie and our landlord and their cats named after Ford models (long story) and the linotype operator. My favorite cat was Lord Falcon Galaxie [sic]. Those guys were decent people who treated my whole family well the entire time we lived there… probably 15 years or so. Like my parents, they’re gone now; may they all rest in peace.
(Please forgive the maudlin ramble. It’s that kind of day here.)
It isn’t about where you live, but how you live. I can think of one local who lives in a house on the water that is probably still worth 7 figures, but he has been trash since I knew him in grade school.