Naming Convention

So why do they call you "Rocket?"

I get that a lot from people who haven't known me very long. Shoot, I'm a grown man, yet for nearly half my life I’ve answered proudly to, what many might consider, a kids alias. So what's up with that? It’s a reasonable question. So let me give you a reasonably long answer.

Since childhood, I've been called a lot of things, some nice, some not so, some not printable. But the very first nickname hung on me that stuck was-- drum roll please--"Bug". 

"Bug"? 

 Who wants to go around all day known as that? Not me. But one day while we were playing 'Army' at his house, my then best friend Terry Lindsay filled me in on the skinny. "Well, you're small and have squatty little legs and I guess everybody thinks you look kinda squashable; like a bug"  Whatever.  

It wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear. But then he softened the blow, putting his arm around me. "But we wouldn't call you that if we didn't like you". Awww, shucks. So after that, whether Terry was snowing me or not, being called "Bug" was okay because, while trying to pick my way through the mine field of second and third grade socialization, in a weird way it made me feel secure and accepted. 

In an earlier post, "Teaching the Children Well", I mentioned how being named editor of The Top Snooper 4th grade newspaper and having a closet full of 'Snoopy' sweatshirts had earned me my next handle, “Snoop”. Though I grew to like "Bug.", I loved "Snoop." I mean, come on, who doesn't like "Snoopy?" So I was cool with it and my friends called me "Snoop" all the way through 8th grade. Those were some pretty good years, too.

But like most kids, often I wasn't high enough along in the hallway hierarchy to adequately fend off the rabble of random tormentors. So there were times before "Bug" and after "Snoop" when my ears burned over a host of other not-so-flattering things. The flaws in my physical physique were the easiest targets. I was either too short (“Shrimp”, “Midget”), had an over-bite (“Bucky”, “Beaver”), or my ears were too prominent (“Dumbo”).

 

The year I got heavy was the worst, though. “Porky” and “Elephant Boy” were at the top of hit parade that year. I know; sticks and stones could break my bones but names weren't supposed to hurt me. But they did. Those did, anyway. Then when nothing else worked, generic terms of endearment such as “Spaz”, “Retard” “Booger Brain” or “Dork” were always in season. But everybody got called those things somewhere along the way, and generally got eventually shrugged off as being just part of the playground pecking order lexicon.

After middle school, because of arbitrary district lines, most of my 8th grade friends ended up going to one high school while I was assigned to another. Not only did I lose my friends and comfort zone, I lost my identity and sense of self and worth and the protection it provided. I wasn't "Snoop" anymore. I was just me. And I sucked at being just me. So my four years at San Juan High were miserable; I didn't feel comfortable or "the love" or ever quite find where I fit in. I was lost. But after escaping to college, I regained a little of my stride again and managed to acquire another nickname.

During my freshman year at Whitworth, I bought a guinea pig. His name was "Flip", a furry brownish-orange critter that ate and pooped a lot. But he was a fun little rodent and added a little life- and aroma- to the dorm room. But six weeks after adopting him, I came back from a journalism class one Tuesday and discovered "Flip" had gone on to that great exercise wheel in the sky.

Awwww.

However, midway through the month and a half "Flip" and I shared a living space- and for reasons I still don’t recall- people started calling me by the same name as my guinea pig. I think Gary Frank was the first to anoint me, "Flip". I was lucky though. "Flip" was clearly better than the pet name Gary affectionately used on his then girl friend. He called her "Stinky". Don't ask. Nobody could figure that one out.  But anyway, living in fairly cramped quarters it didn’t take long for word to get around and soon everybody else on the floor was calling me “Flip”, too. 

 

It beat “Hey you”, I guess. But named after a dead guinea pig? That I didn't get. Regardless, for two years I was, ”Flip”. Then in my senior year, everyone in South Warren acquired an animal nickname. I don’t know why or who started it, but by October the entire second floor had traded in their given names for a critter’s. No longer “Flip”- because that could be a person’s name, too, I suppose (see comedian, Flip Wilson) my name became, ”Badger”. Pretty cool. I liked that one. But notice the pattern? Another small furry creature. In college, at least in our dorm, I'd become synonymous with them. And "Badger" would follow me until I was about 25, when I finally lost touch with the last of my Whitworth buddies. 

 

So where did "Rocket" come from? Don't worry, I'm getting to it.

Out of college and at last on the radio, during my first few years in broadcasting, I'd used several different on-air names. Some were passed on to me by program directors, others I came up with on my own. Having a nom-de-plume added a bit of flair or show-biz element to the gig. But more importantly, before social networking--when most people wanted to keep their private lives private and the only personal information on someone was found in the phone book-- it also offered a level of protection between the radio person and the radio "groupie".

 

Most of these folks are harmless. But some, because they hear you on the radio or have spoken with you on the request line or seen you at a public event, think they've somehow developed a personal relationship with you. Of course, that's the great part of radio: establishing a real one-on-one connection with a listener. But it's not that real, it can't be. And I can't speak for everyone, but for me,  100 per cent of the time it's been very uncomfortable to encounter that odd duck who's crossed the threshold from listener and causal fan to weird stranger; showing up where you do your grocery shopping or calling you at home. It's a little creepy; a little too 'Play Misty for Me', for me. So back in the day, mostly for the sake of remaining anonymous off duty, many of us in radio used fake names.

But what about "Rocket?" Okay, okay. Hang on. Almost there.

My radio days in Spokane and the northwest ended in 1984. In September of that year, I took a job at a little community involved AM radio station, KNCO in Grass Valley, California. I was hired to do nights and the general manager at the time, Chuck Grattner, wanted the evening show to appeal more to Nevada County's youth in general, and Nevada Union High School in particular. With that in mind, Chuck- who was kind of a goofy guy himself- set up a photo shoot for me over to Shaffer's Originals Photography to do a bunch of goofy publicity shots to run in the Union Newspaper and the campus paper at N.U. announcing the new nighttime radio show on KNCO.

 

I was 29, looked about 19 and had a young sounding voice, which was exactly what Chuck was seeking for this new assignment. But to enhance the image even further, he wanted me to come up with a more youthful sounding name; at least more than the stock and trade ones I'd used in Spokane and Sandpoint. At first nothing came to mind. But as we were sitting in his office one afternoon discussing the issue, Chuck took a call, which gave me a little more time to think. It was early into my Grass Valley days and I was still quite homesick for Spokane and missed all the things I used to do there, like playing hockey. When I flashed on that, it made me remember when one of my teammates had called me "Rocket".

 

Lanny Armstrong was the guy who first called me that. He played on the same line with me. And during a game late in our championship 77-78 season, I’d raced past a couple of defensemen to dig a puck out of the corner, then fed Lanny a perfect pass back between them that he put behind the net minder for a goal. It didn’t happen all that often, but was a pretty decent play. When we got back on the bench, Lanny was excited and pounding me on the shoulder pads, "Hey nice play, man, You really had the after burners going out there. You looked like a Rocket, like 'Rocket" Richard, eh?"

We both laughed, not only because Lanny used the Canadian, eh, but for daring to mention me in the same sentence with NHL Hall of Famer Maurice "Rocket" Richard. But let's get one thing straight. I skated okay and was pretty quick, but I was no Maurice "Rocket" Richard. More like Maurice Chevalier. And I can state with absolute conviction that nobody in the league Lanny and I played in, especially me, were getting into an NHL game without first buying a ticket.

And on this particular play, of the two guys I darted around, though one was college age, like me, he also unfortunately suffered from T.S. (Two Stomach's), which limited his mobility. And the other dude was about 60 years old.  I could out skate those two in my sleep ,and if I couldn't should turn in my blades and take up recreational basket weaving. Bottom line, I was a good skater, not a great one; and though I appreciated Lanny's overstating my skating abilities, I think  being small merely gave the illusion of moving faster than I really was.

 

But on that one play I gave more than just the illusion of being a good hockey player. On that play, I was a good hockey player and after that game, whenever we were on the ice together and wanted the puck, he called, "Rocket! Here! I’m open", or words to that effect; but always prefaced by his new nickname for me.  However, it was so late in the season, hardly anybody else picked up on it. So it never really caught on. I think I heard it four or five more times and then never again because I never played on the same team with Lanny Armstrong again. So the name kind of went into hibernation. Until September 1984.

”That's it!” Chuck Grattner announced when I brought this all up. ”From now on, you're Rocket.”

However at first, I was resistant. Though a clever nickname for hockey, I thought it was dumb and terribly lame for radio. But I also didn't have much say in the matter unless I had something better-which I clearly didn’t. So I became “Rocket”. And thought the night show experiment lasted less than a year before I was moved to a day shift, I never lost the handle. Not just on the air, but my co-workers called me "Rocket" in the hall, in the break room, out in the community, too. And it wasn't long before I grew to love it.

But alas, all good things come to an end, and my time at KNCO ended in 1999. And with it, the end of the line for "Rocket", too. Or so I thought.

Six months later I resurfaced at the large corporate broadcast network where I'm still miraculously employed. In March 2000, Diane Schuller, who had worked with me at KNCO, was now at said corporate broadcast network. In fact, Diane’s the one I credit with helping me land the new job. And though at first it seemed incongruous, having always known me as "Rocket" at KNCO, it was comforting to hear someone calling me that again in my new strange surroundings. From the first day I was there. It was like being home again.

But I figured it'd remain a pet name just between Diane and I. And it probably would have too, had it not one day been overheard by the one co-worker who could make a little deal into a big one. He's a freind now, too, but whenever he speaks up, its like the one sick kid at pre-school spreading a cold to everyone else; when he gets a hold of something that interests him, he thinks it should interest the entire world. He thought the name was cool and, with his booming voice that can be beard from one end of the building to the other, soon everyone at my new place of employment had been infected with news of my ‘cool’ nickname, too. And by the time my living out loud friend had finished his campaign to bring attention to the quiet new guy, even the president of the company- who I interacted with about as often as I might rub shoulders with President Obama-- knew me as "Rocket". He still does.

As in 1984 and here in 2011, and just like Popeye, I am what I am, and what I am is still  "Rocket." I may grow old, but the name won't. In fact, I hope they bury me as "Rocket". Yeah, I know- what’s in a name? A rose by any other name, yadda yadda....But at the end of the day- or the end of my days- having a name of endearment given to me by people in life who loved and cared about me, and having that name outlast me, more than makes up for all the times I wasn't sure anyone loved or cared about me. That's what's in this name.

 And I’ll gladly answer to it till my dying day.