An Alabama Childhood

Being named Clyde was not the best thing in the world, but not the worst, either. Having no middle name, there was no place else to go for refuge. I was fortunate, though. One of my sisters liked Phil, and she began to call me by that name. As time went on all of the others did too, and I had a new handle.   



Not that I didn't like Clyde as a name, mind you. It was my daddy's name and I loved him very much.  His daddy was named Claude, and old Great Grand Daddy was named Clyde, after the Clyde River that runs through Scotland, I heard.



It  just seemed to me that every time I heard the name it was being used in a negative or comical light. Bonnie and Clyde...Clyde the Camel...stuff like that. No one in Hollywood was named Clyde, except Andy Clyde, an old time actor, of course. No Clyde Waynes, Clyde Brandos, Clyde Redfords. No Clyde Cruise. No Alabama Crimson Tide players were Clydes. They were mostly all Jeffs and Ricks. I envied boys with names like that, and I would daydream about being named Jeff or Rick, Mike or Dan. I daydreamed about a lot, though, once telling the girl across the street that I was Elvis' brother. She asked her mother if it was true and that was the end of that.



No, Clyde was the name I was given, always hanging there just above my head like a Sword of Damacles waiting to fall. And fall it would at any number of school roll calls, when a teacher would call out my disjointed full name on the list - Phil Clyde Livingston. My heart would sink, but the experience was never as bad as I imagined it might be. One or two goofballs may snicker, but that was about it.



Years later I would be watching the movie Bonnie and Clyde with a new girlfriend when she wondered aloud.



What kind of parents would name a little baby Clyde?,she said. 



It was funny, and we had a good laugh. I knew the answer to the question.



I was the baby named Clyde.