What's in a name?...

On the plus side, I didn't have to spend a lot of time learning to spell my name when I was younger. I pretty well had it nailed by the third grade.

On the negative side, if I had a dollar for every time someone told me "We used to have a dog named Rex!" when I introduced myself, I could take my wife out for a nice dinner somewhere.

A lot of people have had their names legally changed for one reason or another. I've never considered doing that, even with all of the "dog" comments. Didn't want to learn to spell another name, I guess.

One of my favorite Aunts, Eullillian, is having a birthday today. When she was born, her parents named her Oval Eullillian Fannin. When she married Uncle Hobart, it changed to Oval Eullillian Bell. She used to claim that when she started to school, she had to bring a note from her parents to verify for her teacher that Oval Eullillian was really her name. One of the rites of passage when I was growing up was learning to pronounce her name. And spell it.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Aunt Eullillian, from Rex.

And that's the long and the short of it.