Our generation is missing something:
Charlie "Big Jeebie" Clay, with whom I dug ditches, hoed corn and shared a childhood love of Jack London, died of cancer. His brother Russell — "Little Jeebie" — my best boyhood friend with whom I compiled a compendium of smutty jokes and for whom one of my four sons is named, had a fatal stroke. Two brothers, Shorty and Monkey Jordan, with whom I plowed mules, milked cows and played high school baseball, died of cirrhosis.
Snake Driver, Pootie Parker, Greasy Brooks, Preacher Weeks, Cockeye Smith, Cootie and Snoteye Roach, Skunk Bradford and Nutsy Perry, with whom I strung fences, dug stumps, shoveled coal and manure, shucked corn and played football, are all gone.
Those are remarkable monikers for your buddies. Meanwhile, I have friends with names like "Grant" and "Ben." Occasionally, I call my friends by their first letter (so "Tristan" becomes "T"), but never by anything so sweet as "snoteye." So what gives? Why did my generation lose the nickname instinct?
