12
School
Days and Preschool Days, Too:
A treasury of anecdotes culled from my work
and play as a preschool worker and an elementary school after- school
activities supervisor
______
NAMES
1
A couple
of weeks ago a first-grader who's always been known as Daniel, informed
me that from now on, he wants me to call him "Danny". I guess that's
not so surprising. It was a little unusual to me that he'd wanted the
more formal appellation in the first placea family thing, probably.
Now I can sing "Danny Boy" to him, if he ever wants to take a moment
out from his first love, sports, and not be uncertain as to whether
he'll get it.
Around the same time another first-grader
named Ezra told me that from now on I should call him "Pinky." A little
while later he amended that to "Mr. Pinky."
To tell you the truth, I was delighted. I've
always loved the name "Pinky," though I can't remember anyone by that
name except early TV's Pinky Lee. Oh, yes, and a childhood buddy of
mine whose last name, "Minkoff," somehow got convoluted to the nickname
"Pinkus" and then, for a little while, "Pinky".
Calling our student "Pinky" especially
tickles me because as far as I can tell, it's a total non-sequitur.
His skin is a glorious bronze color. There's not a pink spot anywhere
on his body.
Once I asked him, "Why do you want me
to call you Pinky?" Naturally, he answered, "I just like it."
I've also searched in vain for anyone
else he's asked to call him Pinky. His mother and dad both seemed
amused and smiled broadly when they heard me say, "See you tomorrow,
Mr. Pinky!" at the end of one afternoon.
Soon I learned the reason for the broad
smile. His mom had never heard her son's nickname before. Nor have the
other playground supervisors been asked to use it. I feel kind of proud
that I seem to be the only one. Pinky does sometimes refer to himself
in the 3rd person, too, exclaiming things during a game like "Great
kick by Mr. Pinky"!
Postscript: Weeks after writing what's
above, I finally discovered that "Pinky" refers to the fact that the
boy in question is small, "like your Pinky". Fortunately, to have a
logical derivation for the name doesn't entirely ruin the fun!
*****
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