Was it Destiny?

07/25/2025

Was it Destiny?

Daily writing prompt

What’s the story behind your nickname?

This is a repeating prompt and after skipping it multiple times I thought I’d re-post my original answer again today, but first another nickname from birth.

When I was brought into this fabulous world I was the last of the clan. My family called me runt all my life. Runt being the smallest or last of a litter. Now, as Paul Harvey would say…Here’s the rest of the story.

Exposition

1979 found me moving back to Indiana from Cali and was working at Pepsi Co. unloading route trucks. I meet Neil and his lady Marcie one night at my boss’s house when he walked in with our girlfriends. I worked the night shift which got me out of work around 10:30, 11:00 each night.

So they roll in around 1 from bar hopping and by then I had a good buzz going and learned that they had all went to high school together. Neil walks up to me and gets in my face telling me to never mess with his hair, and being the smart-ass I am, I proceeded to pour my can of bud over the top of his head. He went instantly livid, grabbing both women and escorting them back to his truck. He came back inside and I’m thinking “fight time”.

That didn’t happen but he promised to return and finish it, then he took the ladies home (a true gentleman) and returned to Norm’s house where we argued for a little bit then decided to become friends. It was close to 3:30 when we split my boss’s house and I rode with Neil over to a friend of mine’s house that I worked with. After sitting there smoking buds, I bought two four way tabs of black star blotter and we went to an afterhours bar I had been hanging around.

When daylight broke, the bar closed down and we cruised around for awhile (another story, another day) before going over to his house.

It’s On

Neil owned this beautiful full bred Samoyed and as he introduced us I went to pet “Moonshine” and the fucker bit me. Needless to say, instinct kicked in and I dropped straight down on top of Moonshine trapping him to the ground. I stood 6’3” and dressed out at around 235. When we hit the ground that damn dog found out what happens when I get attacked.

I sank my teeth into the back of his neck and bit him back until he howled. Neil, being on that 4 way just stood there laughing his ass off at the both of us. When I let Ol’ Moonshine up he moved away a short piece and after 20 minutes or so came back over to me and was friendly as hell.

About two weeks later and many stories about that morning told by both of us over countless beers, Neil comes over one day and hands me a tee shirt with “Ernie Dawg” and a Saint Bernard embroidered on the left front. From that day on I have been known as “Dawg” with various sur names added as necessary or fitting the mood.

That’s it, that’s how I got my nickname.

To Moonshine, “You were a cool ass dawg who I was very proud to call my friend, thanx for the nickname. A leader of the pack-RIP you cool MFKer.

I still run with Neil to this day and he my friends, is a cool ass Dawg too

Now, do I get a milk bone? or even better a pizza bone?