Ever since I started this project, I wondered what kind of title I might want to put on it. One day I was watching Sherri Easter on one of the Gaither shows. She talked about a song she wrote, titled, “He Loves.” She said that she had started thinking about how she wanted to be remembered. The more she thought about it, the more she thought she would like two words inscribed on her tombstone – “She Loved.”
That set me to thinking, not about what I want on my tombstone, but how I might be best remembered by those who have known me. That took me to the subject of nicknames. Of course I went through my share of embarrassing nicknames during adolescence. I’m glad to leave most of those behind. Some of them have been made obsolescent by changes in appearance. I doubt if anyone would remember that I was once called, “Cotton” and “Slim.” Neither one of those seem to fit anymore. In early childhood, my cousin, Noma, gave me the name “Nor-Nor” but that didn’t last beyond childhood.
I was probably in my late teens, when a young man named Gerald Ball stuck a nickname on me. Gerald was about my age and we participated in youth activities at church. Gerald went to a different school, so he didn’t get involved the competitive cruelties that life seems to impose on people when they’re growing up. Gerald named me “Smiley.” That stuck, at least through my college years. It’s one of the nicknames I liked.
I think Gerald named me that because I smile a lot – always have, always will as long as I live. People today don’t know me as “Smiley,” but they do comment on my smile. I think a lot of people remember that about me. I’m not asking to have it engraved on my tombstone, but I think I would be very pleased to know that people remember me as the man with a smile. So I decided to name my memoir, “Smiley.”
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