A town with nick names

In Donald L. Smith's book about Mt. Morris, My Town: Remembering Mt. Morris (privately published by the author, 1997) he includes an appendix about the nicknames we all knew. Smith says that Hoof Martin was the only guy he ever knew who had a misspelled tattoo--Hoff. Many of them I remember--some of the people (older than me) I never knew by any other name--in fact Smith says about his list, that for some they could find no given name. So I tried to think if our class had nick names. Most were just shortened versions of our given or surname, like Mike, or Pris, or Zink. Some shared them with a parent or older sibling. I was Corby, of course, and my sibs all had some version of that, but my dad with the same surname was Cub and his brothers were Duga, Geno and Buck. And I always called my aunt's husband, "Uncle Gramps," which sounds a little strange, don't you think?

But Kay A. was Shike, not what she's listed as in the yearbook, and Dave B. was "Red," and I always called Greely M. "GG" because I knew him from Forreston and that's what we called him. Francine K. was Kitzie and Dick Z. was Zick, Melvin K. was Moe, Sharon G. was Squeeky, and Nelson P. Jr. was Tom (although to me, he was Tommy since we rode our tricycles together). Steven B. was called Pee Wee as long as I can remember which got a little silly when he became the biggest guy at the class reunions. Glen R. was Rowdy and Glen O. was Ordy. Sometimes we would just say "Orr-did-it" when Mr. Burstrom would ask, and eventually didn't we just call him that?

I don't think our class lived up to the town's standards for nicknames that came before us--Ducks, Sweet Pea, Pappy, Gramps, Speedy Gopher, Spirits, Bootsie, and Dew Drop to name a few.