Happy Birthday Dan Dan

Sunday at my Mom's house.........

A sure sign of Fall

Lilly and Dan Dan putting ladder ball together

Dinner cooking

Make a wish!

This was sooooooooooo good

Who is Dan Dan? He is my mother's boyfriend and I seriously wish there was another word for boyfriend because everytime I say it I just feel weird. Not because I don't think she should have one and not because I don't like him (because I very much do) but because boyfriend sounds so highschool. So that covers who Dan Dan is but why that name you ask? Well, our children call my father Dad Dad (a shortened version of Granddad). When Dan entered the picture after my parents were divorced we joked one time that we replaced Dad Dad with Dan Dan and it stuck. Isn't it funny how nicknames happen? My nickname is Bele (say buh-lee) because my sister could not say Kimberly when she was little. To this day she calls me that and never by my real name. I won't bore you with all the whys of how nick names came to be but here is a short list of some in my family.

Richard.......Gee

Beth.......Cuzza Wuzza

Scott.........Scotty Wotty Do Da

Jennifer......Jeffin

Heidi.........Hilly

Lilly..........the Bean

Gregory.......Mr. G

Sharlyn.......sissy

I think it is so endearing to have a nickname and let me just tell you one more story about the first one on the list. How in the world did my cousin Richard start going by the name Gee (not gee as in gee whiz but Gee as in the g sound in the word great) Got it? Good.

Apparently my Aunt Stella (who my Uncle affectinately referred to as Telly) use to babysit way, way back in the day. As in way back I am talking the late 1960's. It seems one little girl just couldn't say Richard and so she called him Gee. That name stuck like glue and out of our 90 plus member family we ALL call him Gee. A few years ago we were at a family function and his mother (Telly) informed me that Gee really likes to go by Rich and uses that name at his job and she was trying hard to call him Rich so he did not feel like a litte boy with such a silly nickname when he was a grown man. I can appreciate the fact that he would not want to be called Gee at his job but what do you think the chances of me calling him Rich are after 40 years of knowing him as my cousin Gee. I will tell you the chances are ZERO. Never gonna happen. Can't be done.

He has been and always will be Gee.

Now I must confess that one of the things that is so fun about keeping this blog is that I almost never have a plan about what I am going to write. I often upload  my photos and just share the images that strike me at the time. Those images are my jumping off point for starting to write and then I just wind up wherever I do. So today I went from Dan Dan's birthday celebration to nicknames. I love that about writing and I love that about life. Too careful planning often sucks the life out of life.

What's your nickname?

Talk to you soon,

Bele'