Nicknames (and How We Got Ours)

 

This past weekend I learned something new about my husband.  (That is not my husband in the top picture.) After being married all these years, this was a treat.  It so happened that we were out and about and needed to find a place to eat lunch before seeing a movie.  We drove by a vintage-looking sort of restaurant on Touhy and Wes asked if I'd like to go there.  My answer was, "Sure."  The restaurant is called Jack's and has been serving diners since 1963.  Apparently this is
where Wes earned his nickname sometime in the 70s as he and his buddies gathered here to chow down. They were big eaters and he was not.  They told him he ate like a bird and at the booth nearby he officially became Bird. His younger brother, by default, became Little Bird. This is what he was known by when I met him in college, but I never knew that he was named this at the very restaurant we were sitting down to eat our lunch on a cold winter's day.
 

 

Which made me wonder if this type-written menu insert came from those days....who uses a typewriter anymore with letters not quite lining up straight? 

Taking a look at the prices, though, confirmed that it had to have been written in present days.

 

(I should've ordered the PIZZ A  BURGER W   ITH S OUP.)

 

 

Now that you know where his nickname originated, let's go to mine that I just can't seem to shake off.

My friends from college still call me by this name and now their children do, too.  Sheesh.

Somehow I got this nickname from the dad of one of my new friends. 

 

Before I tell you that nickname, you need to go back in time many, many years to a TV show for

children that was the equivalent of nursery school.  Romper Room was the name of the show.

Miss Jane, Miss Carol and Miss Barbara were the TV teachers on  the show and they tried to teach the basics to the young viewing public.  At the end of the show they held a large magifying glass to the camera to "look" into the home audience and got down to business about teaching right from wrong.

They could see if you were being good or bad and I personally bought into their knowing eyes.

 

 

The teachers called the good ones Do-Bees and the naughty ones Don't Bees.

 

Oh how I wanted to be a Do-Bee but I confess I had some Don't Bee tendencies at times-

just ask my sister.

 

Okay, back to college during Freshman Orientation week.  My friend's father apparently remembered the Romper Room show and told Carol (my friend/his daughter) that he thought I was one

who would do the right things - a DO-Bee sort of girl and that she should hang out with me.

At that moment my nickname was born: Dooby.

 

And I will leave it up to you to decide if her father was right or wrong about me!

 

There you have it:  one nickname born in a restaurant and one name given by a friend's dad.