The fact is, I told him; “I acquired two nicknames in the army.”
I explained, “I got first one during basic training when our company was bivouacking in tents in a cool, rainy November in Washington State. We slept in olive drab sleeping bags that covered us from head to foot, a kind of large cocoon with a hole large enough for part of a face. In fact it reminded me of a cocoon some insects like butterflies make in the fall.
“In the early morning when the sergeant came around to awaken us, I was reluctant to get up.
“I’m still in my cocoon stage. Come back when I’m ready to be a butterfly,” I told the sergeant.
My reply was repeated around camp. It caused me to became known for the rest of basic training as “Butterfly.”
Later, I inadvertently traded it for the more masculine nickname, “Rubberman.”
I got that name when I was in the ski troops. I was far from the best skier, but when I crashed it was in a spectacular fashion. I did somersaults. I crashed through fences, I dug a trench with my nose, but I always quickly sprung up unhurt.
And that’s how I got the name ”Rubberman.”
How did you get your nickname?
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Comments: 3
I would've loved to see you skiing! I ski, well.. OK, I don't ski, not after trying it and apparently gravity took over and well, I could ski sitting down.
Nicknames:
When I was young and people do call me this still today and I'm not young! As my first name is Marilyn, it was too long for most of my friends and got shortened to Mare (like the horse), but I got used to it, even liked it as it was lots shorter and easier to say.
When I was older, in junior high/high school, I stopped growing, topping it off at 4'9" and I was in such a small town-school, I think you probably know the town I'm talking about, the one on the other side of Enfield, East Windsor..., and when you're in a very small school, you either get along with everybody, which was me, or you don't. Somewhere along the line, don't remember who even started it, I got the nick, Little Shi*, which could've been because of the pranks I pulled or the trouble that somehow seemed to find me.
Older again and going/dating (do they still call it that?), my now husband called me Sunshine. He still does, off and on. It's funny that over our lifetimes, we end up getting names that seem to go with what and who we are. It's the same with songs, that people let you know remind them of you, as sometimes you can't figure out WHY, or don't even like the song, but those were/are my nicknames and our graduating class was huge, for our town, a whopping 100 people or there-abouts, our son, who went to the same school and had his own various nicknames and still does, had a graduating class of under 70!
I would have loved to see you skiing, Rubberman!
Marilyn