A Rose by Any Other Name

Nicknames are an interesting thing. I'm not talking about Robert who goes by Bob or Kristin who goes by Krissy. I'm talking about those names that others bestow upon you with or without (and usually the latter) your consent.
I've had two such nicknames in my life: Opie and Greasefire.

The Story of Opie

In high school I was a scrawny kid. My 8th grade wrestling picture of me in one of those oh-so-flattering singlets looks like I just walked out of a concentration camp. My best friend at the time, Melissa, was dating a HUGE football player. Stud linebacker. Now I have fairly reddish/brownish hair. This dude takes one look at me and his first words to me are, "Duuuuude, you look like Opie!" What was I to do? Let's see, I can A) say, "Thanks, but no thanks" to Mongo and piss off said gorilla or live with it. I'm still here and breathing, so you can guess the route I took.

Greasefire is Born

I worked at a summer camp for 3 summer. (Oh, the stories I have to tell about that place!) Quick intro to Jameson Camp: We served at-risk kids. Our translation of this boiled down to: If they've been kicked out of school and no other camp would take them...welcome home! We had some great kids. However, they tended to get lost in the crowd of sociopaths.

One of my jobs was to take each counselor's group camping at some point during their 10-day stay. So, I'm out in "the wilderness" as these mostly inner-city children called it and have a pretty good fire going.

I love fire. Big fan. I don't just have a nice, little cooking fire going, I could have signaled the International Space Station with the fire I had going. As I'm standing there admiring my creation, the natives are getting hungry. Bacon cheeseburgers are on the menu tonight. EASY to cook over a fire. I get everything ready to go then turn to start cooking of there fire, and then reality sets in. There's NO WAY I can cook on this massive blaze.

Here's the situation: I have two choices. A) Attempt to cook on the inferno endangering myself and the quality of the food. B) Pissing off 15 juvenile delinquents.

Cooking it is!

I put the pan of bacon on the fire and within microseconds: massive greasefire. It's burning so hot (along with the rest of what I used to think was a good idea) I can't get the pan off of the fire. The bacon is LONG gone at this point. I finally get the pan off and it's completely toasted. Oh, the other counselors had a field day with "the expert" having such a fun night.

Epilogue: The burgers turned out fine, just no bacon. As the kids were goofing around after dinner, I collected a nice pile of rocks and placed them next to my sleeping bag. We didn't use tents, just slept in bags on tarps. Remember the types of neighborhoods this kids came from? Needless to say, Davy Crocket they weren't. As I got them all settled down and in their sleeping bags, they'd start to laugh, giggle, etc. Every time they did, unbeknownst to them, I'd chuck one of my rocks into the woods.

Them: What was that noise?! (remember, to these kids a squirrel and a few birds is the only nature they've been exposed to)

Me: Oh, probably just an ol' coyote looking for some food.

Nothing shuts up kids like the thought of being prey. That'd last for about 20-30 minutes when I'd repeat the whole process until they finally went to sleep. I know, I know. Evil counselor. All I have to say is you take 15 kids, most of whom could probably make a nice shank out of their toothbrush, into the woods overnight, and you see what tricks you come up with!