Nicknames

We all at some point in life, especially guys, pick up a nickname or two. My good friend Tom is a farmer and it seems like forever he has been referred to as Sod or Sodbuster. The thing is that nicknames normally make some kind of sense. Michael become Mike. Edward becomes Ed. Recently we were in South Dakota and went to see Mt. Rushmore. It is an impressive monument to four of our greatest presidents. Our granddaughters chose to refer to it as "Going to see the heads" rather than Mt. Rushmore.

In a way their nickname for the place makes sense.

This is a view of how the monument was created.

So you have workers hanging off the sides of a mountain with air drills carving out faces. Every worker deserved a nickname of some sort. The good news for us is that some have been preserved for us at the site.

It has the usual. Alfred T. "Al" Johnson. Robert "Bob" McNally. You expect nicknames like "Shorty" for a fellow of small stature. Perhaps "Pops" for the old guy on the job. Rickard "Dick" Jatko. I offer the following closer view and ask you to look at the nickname for H.V. Huntimer.
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I completely understand you being nicknamed "Big Dick" if your first or middle name is Richard and you are 7 feet tall. I can't get the nickname "Big Dick" from the initials H or V. Nor does his last name "Huntimer" lend itself to that moniker. Where does that leave us? I look back at the picture of those guys hanging off the mountain and my thought is that every one of them earned the nickname "Big Balls" for what they did. Of course no job site could ever function if every worker shared the same nickname. Back to "Big Dick" Huntimer. Generations of visitors to Mt. Rushmore will visit the monument and look at the names inscribed on this wall of granite. They will ponder the reason Mr. Huntimer was nicknamed "Big Dick". Since, to the best of my knowledge, the reason for the nickname has been lost in the mists of time. Each of us is free to create our own rationale. I suspect that if your name is going to be carved in a slab of granite there are few things a man would want placed next to his more than "Big Dick".