Nicknames at work

We've had our share of characters come through the Old Barn. I've described some in detail and a few in passing but I haven't really mentioned the bulk of them. Here are a few glimpses of other notables who have stepped through the door. 

There was California. I never did learn his actual name nor why he was nicknamed for the state. What I do remember is that he sounded exactly like Huckleberry Hound. You could hear him singing My Darling Clementine like he owned it. If you heard his voice from behind a screen you'd swear it was the guy who voiced that bluish Hanna-Barbera hound dog. 

Speaking of voices, there was a guy who sounded exactly like Eeyore, the woeful donkey from Winnie the Pooh. Eeyore's main complaint was that he could never get a girlfriend. "Who'd want to date a guy who does what I do (clean sewers) for a living?" he often lamented in that dullish monotone. Then he found a girlfriend. He told us about it one day, in exactly the manner Eeyore would have. "I got me a girlfriend. Now I have to paint her kitchen." 

Grandpa Joe christened one guy 'Cash' Adams. Mr. Adams would walk into the door and Joe would say, "There's Cash Adams. He gets cash and pays cash." Grandpa explained to me that he wasn't sure he could trust the guy so he came up with the moniker to embarrass him from asking for credit. Apparently it worked. 

I'll end today with Mr. Clean. I don't know that anyone called him that to his face as he was a muscular, mountain of a man. But he always wore a white t-shirt and had a big gold earring in his ear. Yes, he looked just like the guy on the bottle of cleaning fluid. 

I was thankful he was just a super nice guy, because he looked like he could rip your head off.