What's in a name?

I was not named after anyone in my family. The story I heard about my naming is that my mother had friends who had given their son the name Joe George. And since she had liked that name, she proposed naming me Joe Jerry, and it "took." I'm a little surprised, in retrospect, that I wasn't named Joe Calvin, since the name Calvin had come down in my Grandmother's Holcombe family for several generations, and my father was named Calvin Russell Nichols. For most of my early life, like my Dad, I was known exclusively by my middle name, Jerry. Many people probably assumed that Jerry was my first name. It was only when I was in the late years of high school that my brothers started calling me Joe, or big Joe. That didn't go outside our family, but even my sister Donna and my mother eventually took up calling me Joe.

After I graduated from high school and had a year of college behind me, I took a summer job with Danco Construction Co., a North Little Rock company who had the contract to lay the first underground telephone cable across Benton County. We were working in the Centerton area when I started, and soon we were digging our way across Bentonville, over to Rogers, laying cable down North 8th Street and ending up at the telephone office on West Walnut. I think we cut and repaired every sewer line in Bentonville on our way through there. Anyway, the Danco job foreman, a fellow named Buster, always called me Joe. Hey, Joe! Hmm, who could that be he's hollering at? Oh, that's me! I eventually became sort of accustomed to answering to Joe. Then, in Army ROTC at the University of Arkansas, our officers always addressed us by our first names, so I progressed a little farther toward recognizing myself as Joe.

Throughout my years as a pastor of churches, I had to give special attention at times to getting my name straightened out in our church's Little Rock offices. A new directory of our pastors would come out, and they would have me listed as Jerry Joe Nichols. So, I would call the state office and ask that the records be corrected to list my name as Joe Jerry Nichols. Then, before long, some of my friends in the office would see that name, and they would tell the secretarial staff, this isn't right, he is Jerry Joe, and they would "correct" it and it would be wrong again. I don't know just how many times I corrected it through the years, at least a half dozen times. Anyway, by the time I took retirement in 2002, most of the regulars in the state office understood that I am Joe Jerry, not Jerry Joe.

A few years ago, I began occasionally hearing songs by a country singer by the name of Joe Nichols. I didn't think too much about it at first; I just thought it was interesting to have a country singer sharing my name. Joe Nichols has not been the most prominent of the country singers, but he has enough of a following and enough success in selling his music and receiving awards that he has good name recognition. Now and then he has put out a song that I like. But I wouldn't really call myself a fan. I have been more of a detached observer of his career. His career, and its reach among music fans, never really affected me personally until we made our move back to Pea Ridge in 2002. We had arranged for telephone service in our new home through Centurytel, as it was then, and without thinking, I gave the telephone company my full name, Joe Jerry Nichols. So, when the new phone books came out, we were listed as Joe and Nancy Nichols. Almost immediately, I began receiving phone calls from the fans of Joe Nichols, the singer. Usually it was young teenagers, often several gathered together. I remember that one group was so excited -- It's him! It's him! He's answered the phone!!! I had never ever had anyone so excited to reach me by phone! Of course, then I would have to burst their bubble and tell them that I wasn't the "real" Joe Nichols. One girl asked me, when I told her that I was about twice as old as that Joe Nichols, "Well, are you his Grampa?!!" Well, no, shucks, not that either!

I think the most humorous call I received, related to Joe Nichols the singer, came from a man who started out by telling me that he had written several new songs, and he wanted to get with me and see if I could use some of his songs for my next recording sessions or for my performances. I had to let him down, telling him that while I do sing some, mostly in church and for funerals, I am not the Joe Nichols he was looking for. Alas, that may have been my last opportunity to bask in the shadow of a celebrity!

•••

Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist. He can be contacted by e-mail at joe369@century tel.net, or call 621-1621.

Editorial on 02/03/2016