I Have a Nickname

I began attending a state secondary school in Melbourne, Australia the year I turned 13, painfully aware that I could not see another boy in the schoolyard wearing short pants like me. It soon earned me the nickname of 'Hairylegs', mainly because my legs were smooth and very pale. In fact there was not a hair anywhere on my body other than my head. This was embarrassing to say the least but I was not the only one with an embarrassing name. There was a boy born in Australia to post-war German immigrants who named their son 'Adolf', apparently unaware that he would have a little bit of trouble living the name down in a former British colony and WWII military ally. Those who knew him well were bound by a strict code of loyalty to call him anything except that awful name. A class size of 50 was not uncommon in this underfunded state school at the time. If a teacher walked out of the room at any time during a class the boys were expected to remain completely silent and were not allowed to get up from their desk for any reason. This boy was caught breaking that rule and a teacher decided to make an example of him in front of the whole class. The teacher pointed at him and shouted "YOU, YES YOU LAD. YOU KNOW THE RULES DON'T YOU. WHAT IS YOUR NAME?" You could have heard a pin drop the room became so quiet. The boy lifted his head proudly, stuck out his chest and replied "My name is ROB, sir". About 50 other teenage boys lost it altogether, you could have heard them laughing on the next floor through two and a half feet of steel reinforced concrete. Post-war Australia is a place that values freedom, equality and tolerance. That teacher was the only person in the room who did not know that boy's real name. I met that boy again by chance years after we both left that school. I knew him as Rob and he called me Hairylegs. Until then we never had much in common but we did from then on. We were about the same age but he died of a mysterious illness somewhere around age 50. We all tried some wierd stuff in the psychedelic 60's. Unfortunately I am afraid that Rob tried some stuff that can be unforgiving of small mistakes. It is not worth the risk, just because some fool laughs at your race or religion. Have you seen Pink Floyd's latest offering in Youtube? They all have the theme 'Forgivness Is A Gift'. My favourite is 'Coming Back To Life'.