This is pretty strange, even for me. While in the air flying to Texas from Germany I had an epiphany. I decided that I was tired of being known as Roger. The name was just too common for my generation. Go into a room and yell, “Hey Roger” and odds are that a half dozen guys would turn their heads. And I just didn’t really like the sound of it.
Is there anyone out there who can relate? I mean anyone. I would guess if your name was Gaylord, or Percy or Marion, you could relate a bit, but well, a name like Roger is already masculine and all, so what was my beef? I really don’t know, but I knew I wanted a change. But what?
In Homage
So here’s the story, I was driving to NYC after my youngest brother’s wedding. Tommy, my drunken older brother (who I lived with in Chicago earlier) was driving me to the airport. We were sorta out of our minds a bit. In other words, lots of Budweiser. Lots. He got in a huge amount of trouble with the law on the return journey, which somehow my Dad bailed him out of the mess by throwing a bunch of money around. (money he probably didn’t have, but that’s another story)
I spent a lot of time with Tommy, and we had this thing about the Blues Brothers. (this included a trip to Joliet, Illinois to see the prison where Jake and Elwood were incarcerated) We would roll around in our car, which resembled the blues mobile, and had the shades on and all that happy shit, and I was into the blues. Not Tommy, but I was.
So since I was also getting into playing the bass (That was the plan, I actually hadn’t bought my first bass yet) I decided to go with the name Elwood. So that’s what I went by for two years. Most people thought it was my middle name, but it was really just something that I made up. The nice thing (at least my thinking at that time) was that if I got in trouble, no one could trace the name Elwood to me. I mean no official records, anyway.
I told this story to my youngest brother, that my nickname was Elwood, and that I thought it was pretty cool, and he said he would hit someone who called him a name like that. I guess to each his own. although that wasn’t even my own.
A side note. I almost made a catagory of drunken bull shit, but then I realized lots of my ‘adventures’ would fit into it. Too general, I guess, especially for a sergeant. (oh, military humor, wow.)
