Nicknames

When my younger brother John was in high school, his baseball coach hung on him the nickname JB, which stuck like glue. Nearly everyone knows him that way, even today (at the ripe old age of 48). By extension, I am 'AB.' When my son was born in 1986, my then-wife Deb and I named him after my brother, as JB and I are close. But Deb proclaimed, definitively, "He will never be 'JB.' " However, when he got old enough to choose for himself, that's what he chose, and in high school he was known as 'JB Borton.' (Though I think he has largely abandoned this now, in college). My wife Michelle has for years called John "John Bon," so now I usually address him as Bon, and he seems to like this.

Meanwhile, when my daughter Christine Elizabeth first got email back in the early nineties, she chose to use her initials in the screen name of 'cebgirl.' This reminded me of her mother, and so I called her 'Cebbie' ... and I was pleased when she said that she liked the nickname, and wanted me to continue to use it. And so I do. And not long after this, she began, out of the blue, calling me "Dadders." That also continues, and warms my heart.

Meanwhile, when they were very young, my wife Michelle's younger siblings called her "Mimi" ... and that, too, has stuck. Christy and John refer to her almost exclusively that way.