I am both abuser and abused......sorta'...............

I tend to use some alternative name sometimes as a form of casual friendship or famiarity way. Sometimes these stick but occasionally they offend so I am probably more careful now than I used to be. I was quite appreciative of Ron Olesko a number of years back for letting me know that I had offended him over something having to do with his name. I like Ron and he does tolerate me to some degree so I apologized. I didn't recall the remark as those type of things are often just throw-off lines but I appreciated being told!

On the other hand, I have many around here who may hate it but I have used something that stuck and they've gone along with it. Lonesome EJ became Leej for instance....Dave Swan, El Swanno, etc. I have no idea now who first used "Spaw" instead of catspaw49 but it stuck and now very few 'Catters refer to me as anything else even in person. When I call someone here I generally sound a bit confused when they answer by saying, "Hi....This is Spaw, uh, Pat Patterson, er,uh, Catspaw?.......from Mudcat?"........

One thing that is pretty true overall is no one uses my given name, Patrick. Quite rightly, my parents knew that when your last name is Patterson they're going to call you "Pat."    Oddly enough though, only a very few folks called my Dad Pat. He was named Walter James but never used either as a name. A very select few called him Walt or Walter, a few used Pat but most everyone knew him as "Unk." I never knew why.

So I come by it naturally I guess. My Dad was a railroader where nicknames were common. Sometimes they had several. Dad was known as a "smooth rider" engineer....meaning the train crew in the caboose got a smooth ride because the guy at the controls knew how to run slack in and out without throwing them on their heads. For this he was "Cadillac Man." In the early sixties when Snoopy and The Red Baron became popular he started telling other railroaders that he was a direct descendant of von Richtofen......a complete fabrication of course but..............He started using the "Red Baron" name on the radios and within a year we were getting a shitload of Christmas cards addressed to "The Red Baron."

Did I mention that my Ol' Man loved to latch onto something and then just beat everyone to death with it for the sake of simple amusement? Sound familiar?   The older I get the more I realize...........................

Oh yeah......No one has ever called me Patrick except my Mom when she was mad at me..............'course she never much used Pat either........called me "Patfrank."...............Even though I really didn't like it then, I knew she used it as a term of love so it was obviously okay.......and I miss that....and her.


Spaw, uh,Pat, er,uh,catspaw49?