• Yer a big deal already •
[2 MIN READ]
Newbie Kate joined the Growlers for the first time and created trouble immediately. For me anyway. As someone who writes about the club and its peeps, I don’t use full names. So, the first appearance of any name among the crew is not a problem, but the second appearance by another person is. The solution is nicknames. We have a “Train Dave” because there has been a host of preceding Daves (The Daves of JRC’s Running Club). We also have Terp Adam and Jenkintown Adam. And we have Eric’H and Eric’S (pronounced Eric-aitch and Eric-ess, respectively).
This seems to be a serious problem only to me because Stacey insisted that she’s never met either of the previous Kates (last active in the club in 2020 and 2022). That situation had a modest solution because one was a “Kate” and the other was a “Cait,” so it was “C-Cait” and “K-Kate.” Newbie Kate suggested “Kathryn,” but that also wasn’t really a workable solution for homophonic reasons.
Stacey’s solution was to ignore the problem. To her and everyone else it is a non-issue: newbie Kate is simply “Kate.” The situation would be different if either other Kate was still actively running with the crew.
(L-R: T’Adam, CtCloser [selfer, front], Jason, J’Adam, newbie Kate, Thaddeus, Stacey, Train Dave)
Any conviction on my part to try to give newbie Kate a nickname or otherwise qualify her given name is one person’s problem only. On the other hand, no one dismissed me for making a big deal of this issue in front of her (and I went on for a little while, as I can). That means there must be a modicum of validity to my concern, otherwise they would have made me stand down as they did when I fussed recently about following the rule for attendance photos (Bossy and Irritable).
Having literally been wakened one morning wrestling with this problem, I now have a nickname to present to newbie Kate for her consideration. If she accepts it, you’ll start hearing and seeing it in use.
To finalize the necessity of considering this matter at all, I present another fact for your consideration. When I gave my usual run report to Wife after Kate’s inaugural outing, I said: “We had a new runner join us this week. Her name is Kate.” Wife’s reply? “Another Kate?”
-CtCloser (Calvinthe), “Negative split or positive splat” #dothedue
FINE PRINT ¶Text and photos (unless otherwise stated): Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ¶Cross-posted: (1) Facebook JRC Growlers Group Run (2025’09’17’W Run Message), (2) GGR email list, (3) Cerebruns by CtCloser. ¶This website posting: Cerebrun with added caption.
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