By Ben Mullin
Divorced couples, marketing gurus and confused postal workers will all tell you the same thing: Names matter.
Title, nickname or salutation, the way people refer to us has bearing on the way we perceive ourselves. During the course of my life, I”ve had several names, few of them pleasant.
To my family, which is painfully oblivious to the world of fellatio-based humor, I will always be known by my first two initials ? “B.J.”
When my first English teacher took one look at my long blond locks, she decided I was an oddly literate golden retriever and spent the rest of the school year calling me “Benji.”
And after I wore a pink T-shirt given to me as a joke by one of my friends, I was given another nickname: “Lady of the Night.”
So you can imagine my chagrin during the first period of the first day of high school, when I slipped and fell on the dewy grass during the 100-meter dash. Amid the laughter coming from the assembled students 40 yards away, I heard my teacher”s voice call out:
“Mullin, you run like a drunk on ice!”
Different religions have their own concept of hell, but I”m here to assure you hell is actually a wet patch of grass near the 50-yard-line, where you spend an eternity wondering how your new classmates are going to condense “drunk on ice” into an easily barkable, two-syllable nickname.
Though the battered corpse of my dignity endured yet another kick to the face that day, I didn”t pick up any new names. However, the experience did leave me with a frank and unflattering assessment of my athletic ability. I thought I was clumsy and slow, barely fit to run in a straight line.
Two years later, when I showed up for my first day of cross country practice, I figured out I was right.
I was slow, but I could run slowly for longer than other people. I was clumsy, but my awkward, giraffe-like limbs gave me a slight advantage in stride length. I never knew where I was going, but that was OK, as long as the guy in front of me did. In fact, all the sport required was that I put one foot in front of the other until I collapsed which, I did, more than once.
And best of all, I got a new nickname.
Owing to my resemblance to an albino chimpanzee, I was dubbed “White Shadow” by my fellow runners. I carried that name around like I would a pair of overly-thick horn-rimmed glasses ? geeky but proud. I had it shouted it at me as I ran around the track and called to me across the campfire during our trips. I kept it for the two years I spent running cross country and retired it when I went to college.
Or I thought I did. The truth of the matter is, though no one calls me “White Shadow” anymore, the nickname has stuck with me. It”s an artifact of the past I dust off every day I roll out of bed and run to class, or make the decision to exercise and stave off the inevitable tide of cellulite. After two years of being called an athlete, I”ve finally started to call myself one.
Benjamin Mullin is a student at CSU, Chico studying English and journalism. He will spend his summer as a contributing writer for the Record-Bee. He can be reached at BenjaminMullin14@hotmail.com or at 530-519-0138.
