As we move deeper and deeper into our isolation it’s becoming harder and harder to find an article, post, blog, podcast, phone call (!) that doesn’t reference COVID-19. But I think I’ve finally found something I can write about where the virus isn’t right up there in the first paragraph. Ooops.
Anyway… how about death? Actually death notices – you know, obits, necrologies, life tributes, obituaries. I’ve noticed something about them, oh yes I have indeed. And not just that there are getting to be a lot of them out there nor that I haven’t shown up in one yet. I’m seeing that a lot of people don’t seem to know their own name. I’m guessing here.
Just recently there have been a lot of obituaries in the paper for people with multiple names. I don’t mean the deceased married woman who is listed with both her married and maiden names. I mean people with 2, sometimes 3 given names. I saw one just this morning (real name changed to protect his guardian angel from being teased by the other guardian angels): Joseph “JB” “Joey,” “Scooter” Brown. Ummmm. Really? Are there people reading the obituaries coming across Joey’s name and aren’t sure if they only saw Joseph listed that they could not be sure if that was the same Joey who was their friend? And those who didn’t know him as anything but Scooter, what are the chances they even know Scooter Who?
I saw a lot of them over the past few days, and some pretty colorful monikers too. Stucky, Gar Gar, Dickie Lou, Butch, Baby, Babe, Mac (whose last name did not start Mc or Mac), Birdie, and Stitch to name several more than a few.
I remember the gang my father hung out with. Nobody had a real name. Actually they all did but they didn’t Anglicize their names so they used nicknames to make calling them easier. Among them were Bunny, Ninny, Patsy, Mare, Jojo, and Tuner. These were all guys by the way. But the obituary didn’t read John “Bunny” Doe. It was just John Doe and everybody knew that was Bunny. No, multiple choice names weren’t necessary and they still got good send offs. Mostly because everybody knew everybody then and the crowd at the funeral home was already spilling out to the parking lot before the obituary was even published. I can’t imagine the funeral director would even put an order through for Ninny to be printed on the prayer cards. Some of the other names might even make a prayer card spontaneously combust!
I can’t imagine my obituary reading anything but the name I have on my driver’s license. And I’m not so sure about this trend of putting pictures in obituaries either. You look at some of them, “John Doe, 93, died in his sleep after a long, long, long illness,” and there’s a picture of some young guy in full hiking regalia climbing out of a canoe. If it gets to where they insist on a picture then I guess if they’re going to use my driver’s license name they might as well use that picture too. And I already have the plaque for the drawer preordered and that has the name from the check I sent them to pay for the engraving. Just fill in the end date.
Hmm, you know, I wonder what’s on Scooter’s headstone.
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