Marlin Fickett rued the day when his mothah Mabel
named him aftah Marlin Perkins, the host of Wild Kingdom. Marlin Fickett always
felt that there was somethin’ fishy about his name and all his life he felt
that his name was like a giant anaconda chokin’ the joy out of him.
Marlin thought about pickin’ a new name, but it wasn’t
a-going to be Jim. He could just hear
Marlin Perkins a-sayin’ “Now Jim, you jiss ride out there and lasso that
anaconda and the two of us will grab a-holt of it.” No, Jim was not the name he
wanted. He thought of Charlie, but
while he was a-ponderin’ that he got a bad Charlie Horse, and he gave up on
that idea.
Eventually Marlin settled on the name Aloysius. Now, nobody he knew was named Aloysius, and nobody that he knew on T.V.
was named Aloysius, so Aloysius was some pleased with his new name. Aloysius it
is, and that’s what I’ll call him.
Now Aloysius lived in the small town of Put About,
Maine, population 103, except the 3 had been struck out, and painted over with
2, because old Willy Monroe had found a new direction in his life and died. But
Aloysius’s friends and neighbors were not about to Put About and go in a new
direction.
Change is just not in the DNA of the people of Put
About. Some of them thought it was pretty uppity and flat refused to call him
Aloysius. Some of them couldn’t pronounce Aloysius, and others forgot from time
to time; they just knew he didn’t want to be called Marlin. The net result was
that people just sorta froze up and didn’t call him by name.
It’s an awful thing when people don’t know who you
are anymore.
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