D-E-R-O-N

Today, several of us assisted the Hunt family with packing, cleaning and exterminating. The move had Bill's dad and a friend pulling away a trailer with an estimated 90% of their belongings & leaving friends with more questions than answers.

I acquired 3 more baseball cards today of my namesake, Deron Johnson. Depending on which dictionary you consult, I'm his namesake or vice versa. Technically, he might be my eponym because I don't think I was named after him for who he was & what he did ?? but because my parents liked the spelling of his name. My Dad took me to meet him once when he was coaching with the Angels & they were playing the Brewers.

I like my name. Always have - good thing. It has caused some difficulty though. I've heard all the pronunciations & been called them all - D'ron (Deron Cherry - KC Chiefs), Dee-Ron (Ryan gets away with that one routinely). There are probably as many ways to spell Darren as there are letters in the alphabet. I've even seen it with an 'h'. At Starbucks if they ask for my name & for the spelling I tell 'em they can just spell it however they like because even if I spell it the next person that reads it is probably just going to slaughter it anyway. How hard can it be? :) Deron rhymes with heron - the bird. Roll call in class at the beginning of the school year was always fun too. For those that get it right the first time, it's like we have an instant connection - want to give them a high-five.

I will sometimes avoid the trouble when making reservations at a restaurant by using my middle name. It seldom gets used for anything and is hard to mess up. Interesting side note: I learned while working in the Records Office - Japanese & Swedish students do not typically have or use middle names. I think I'm going to mess with my kid's name by putting a punctuation mark in the middle of it. That will also give me an automatic excuse to raise my voice when addressing him. "Joh!nny."