Well, it’s time to call Joanie Arbuckle again.
Joanie and I talk to each other at least once a year, and that is always on August 12, the day both of us were born in the year 1946, not long after WWII ended, when every husband, who, if he wasn’t a father already, returned from the battlefield with a strong desire to start a family. My dad was in the Navy in the South Pacific; her dad was with the Navy in Europe.
It’s no wonder maternity wards all over the country were so busy that year in hospitals like Stanford in Palo Alto where Joanie and I were delivered. It’s always been a matter of contention as to who came first, as we were born just seconds apart, but Joanie and I have left that question up to our parents, who always seemed to have more fun with the issue that to this day has never been resolved. Joanie and I have never really cared; we’re just happy that we’re able to talk to one another after all these years.
If Joanie calls me up, she’ll refer to me as Nicky, the name I grew up with. Nicky was my nickname. I was born as King Harris, Jr. My grandmother on my father’s side was Lucie King. She named her second son King. Then I came along. What to do with my name? Lucie preferred King, Jr. My mother’s mother preferred Nicholas, after the Russian czar. It wasn’t until some clever or inebriated person in the family suggested this: “Why not name him King, Jr., but call him Nick, because if you turn King around to Gnik, and make the G silent, you have NIK, or Nick. Then you appease both sides of the family.”
I, of course, had no say in the matter, and grew up using the name Nicky instead of King, my real name, which was fine by me as 1) there was already a King in the family, my dad, and 2) King would be a joke to my peers, as it was many times anyway.
I went through college using Nick, but decided to return to King because of a discussion I had with my roommate during the Vietnam War. One night he asked me, “What is it you don’t like about your father? I mean, why don’t you call yourself King instead of Nick?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Probably because King was a bit too much. You get teased a lot. So growing up with a first name like King isn’t a lot of fun. But I don’t think it has anything to do with how I feel about my dad.”
“Well I like it,” he said. “It’s unique and I think you should start using it.”
It was a good time to start, I thought, after spending a year away overseas, although most people including my entire family will forever call me Nick or Nicky. By the time I got into broadcasting in 1976, my moniker was King, which perturbed my father somewhat.
“So now that you’re entering radio and television, you start using my name!” he would and did exclaim. “I would appreciate it if you tacked on the junior because it’s not me behind the mike and I don’t want people to get confused and think it’s me when it’s really not.”
“You’ll get over it, Dad,” I responded, and added, “After all, it was you who gave me the name in the first place. And I can’t go on the air as King Harris, Jr. That would be, well, sort of juvenile.”
So throughout most of my broadcasting career, much of it in television as a news anchor and reporter, I was known as King Harris. If there was an advantage of having a first name like King in the business I was in, it was guaranteed that if I sent an audition tape off to another TV station, the powers that be would look at it even if they weren’t seeking new talent. Headhunters, general managers, or news directors would always be curious as to what a king looked like, whether or not he was a minority, and what kind of person would be arrogant or pretentious enough to name himself King.
The disadvantage is that the name wouldn’t play in most parts of the country, particularly the Midwest in places like Tulsa, not that I ever wanted to go there in the first place. The coasts were more forgiving, I thought, until one experienced female headhunter from New Jersey saw my tape and said, “Honey, you’re a nice looking boy but a king you are not. And get rid of the glasses.”
As I get older, more people have accepted my name, the younger crowd especially thinking it’s way cool.
Starbucks, I have to say, stumbles a bit when I order coffee. “What’s your first name?”
“King.”
“Ken?”
“No, King.”
“Kim?”
“No, King, as in queen.”
Some baristas don’t even get that. Sometimes my cup looks like a novel has been written on it.
When I call Joanie this August 12, I’ll say, “Hi, happy birthday, this is King!”
And she’ll say, “Many happy returns to you, too, Nicky!”
Either way, she’ll know who I am.