Bolo
Contributing Partner
This morning while I was browsing though the posts here on the site I was amused to see how many of us, not all but most, use a "Nom de plume" rather than our real names. Folks like Christian Williams don't but sailors like me do, just like the days when I was in my late teens....early twenty's, and CB radios were the rage. My handle then was "Mohawk". Don't ask me why I came up with that one because I'm not of American Indian decent (I'm 100% Polish) and I didn't have a Mohawk hair cut although my hair was, quite long, blonde....and not gray....like today. Anyway, my handle here is "Bolo" and I do have a story about it.
Back in the 90's when I was deep into being a freelance photographer, I was shooting on location in NYC for a national magazine. The magazine's art director accompanied me along with some other crew, which was the usual way back then, and after awhile she suggested sending someone out for some coffee. Someone was found to visit a local NYC corner deli and in a little while, after taking our orders.....cream, no cream, double sugars, etc...., our coffee orders returned. Each cup was marked with our names which the art director read out and distributed. She picked up the last one and said, "Who's Bolo?" Well, everyone had their coffee except for me....cream, no sugar....so by way of the process of elimination it was obviously mine but why was it marked "Bolo"? The answer came after close examination of the labeling. It was suppose to be "Bob" but, I guess in haste whoever printed my name got messy with the last letter "b", adding a space between the vertical line of the letter and the round part creating "l o" and so along with the other letters it read, "B o l o". The nick name stuck, at least for that art director, who used it for me once in awhile but always with a smile and sometimes a bit of a giggle. Fast forward to the day when I first signed in on the EYO web site and saw that many used their own "Nom de plumes", I decided to resurrect "Bolo"! Besides, most of you probably can't properly pronounce my last name, "Skalkowski", anyway let alone spell it. That I've learned from making reservations.
So how did you come up with your "Nom de plume" here on EYO? An interesting story? Hopefully a better one then mine, a name gotten form a mis-marked take-out coffee cup.
Back in the 90's when I was deep into being a freelance photographer, I was shooting on location in NYC for a national magazine. The magazine's art director accompanied me along with some other crew, which was the usual way back then, and after awhile she suggested sending someone out for some coffee. Someone was found to visit a local NYC corner deli and in a little while, after taking our orders.....cream, no cream, double sugars, etc...., our coffee orders returned. Each cup was marked with our names which the art director read out and distributed. She picked up the last one and said, "Who's Bolo?" Well, everyone had their coffee except for me....cream, no sugar....so by way of the process of elimination it was obviously mine but why was it marked "Bolo"? The answer came after close examination of the labeling. It was suppose to be "Bob" but, I guess in haste whoever printed my name got messy with the last letter "b", adding a space between the vertical line of the letter and the round part creating "l o" and so along with the other letters it read, "B o l o". The nick name stuck, at least for that art director, who used it for me once in awhile but always with a smile and sometimes a bit of a giggle. Fast forward to the day when I first signed in on the EYO web site and saw that many used their own "Nom de plumes", I decided to resurrect "Bolo"! Besides, most of you probably can't properly pronounce my last name, "Skalkowski", anyway let alone spell it. That I've learned from making reservations.
So how did you come up with your "Nom de plume" here on EYO? An interesting story? Hopefully a better one then mine, a name gotten form a mis-marked take-out coffee cup.
