I was named after a Mouseketeer.

True story.

My older brother was 4 at the time my mother was pregnant (late 1955 into early 1956), back when the original Mickey Mouse Club was all the rage on television. My parents were real Bible-thumpers and had raised their kids on their religion, so of course my brother went to Sunday School at their church. One day he told his Sunday School teacher excitedly that he was going to have a baby sister named Sharon (after his favorite Mouseketeer, Sharon Baird).

After class, the teacher excitedly congratulated my mother on her pregnancy... which puzzled my mother since neither she nor my father had yet announced the pregnancy to anyone and she hadn't been "showing" as yet. Turns out that my brother had been praying for a baby sister, and had had such innocent faith that he knew he would get one... so why not tell his teacher so?

Of course, when I was born and it was discovered that I was indeed a girl, my parents had no choice but to name me Sharon. They did have a contingency plan in case I was a boy (I would have been named George -- ugh), but it would have crushed my brother's faith, perhaps irrevocably.

As it was, my brother retained his faith to the point that, after attending college and entering the teaching profession, he felt the call to the ministry. After several years of that, he re-entered the teaching field, but he still performs the occasional wedding.

...and I am saddled for life with the legacy that I am the namesake of a Mouseketeer. See ya real soon!

Sharon