All I ever wished for was a good nickname. Northside made it happen.

In high school, I tried to convince the baseball team to call me "Crazy Eights" or "Goose Egg," but 10 years later, I’m still the only one who remembers. My wife’s nickname is Flique, a shortened version of Flique Nique, coined by a long-gone friend after a night of margaritas. My unborn baby’s nickname is Steamboat, an allusion to his current situation. Even my guitar dons the nickname of Woody, a three-fold moniker. (Figure out all three on your own.) I love and long for a nickname so much that I work hard at giving them to people. I refer to my friend Caroline as "Lion." I call Chris Bongorno "Bibs." My friend Adam is known as "Double Stack." Bryan Wallace is "Dr. Double Jubs." Matt Reynolds is "Chicken Bone." I’ve given all of the Freddies their nicknames: J-Dog, Sugar Britches, and Kentucky.

Generally, the sequence of events leading to the acquisition of a nickname reveals an irreverent comfortability with someone else. The only way to get a good nickname is to either

A) do something memorable (see "Double Stack" and/or "Chicken Bone") or
B) be someone loveable who has a crappy Mom-given name.

Up until now, it seems that I’ve done nothing quite memorable enough to earn me a nickname (besides being born red-headed, a curse that came with the default nickname of "Red" which doesn’t count). And in an effort to maintain a relatively stable sense of self-worth, I’ll choose to believe that I am someone loveable. Therefore, I’m unofficially relieved to find that perhaps the reason I’ve never had a nickname is because my Mom-given first name of "Jake" actually sounds cool. And I was riding that wave for a while, but then I discovered that the name of "Jake" is cool if you happen to be a dog. According to statistics, American dog-owners have chosen the name of "Jake" over all other dog names for the last dozen years.

So, there I was, wandering the streets of Northside in a nicknameless stupor. And everywhere I’d turn, people were calling me to "come here boy" or screaming at me to "get back inside" or "roll over." I was hungry for a nickname. I was confused. Lost.

And then I heard it. The words sprang from the mouth of Kevin, the dude that takes orders at Portofino, the little Greek restaurant by my house. He spoke them with such love and memorability – they were more of a profession than just an utterance. He said, "Hey, what’s going on, Two Veggie Hoagies with Italian Dressing?" And there my nickname was born. "Two Veggie Hoagies with Italian Dressing." My regular order at the store. Yeah, a bit wordy and a tad awkward, but I finally have my very own nickname.

Kevin called me "Two Veggie Hoagies with Italian Dressing" at Ace Hardware the other day, and then again at the Northside Tavern. He’s used it twice on his walk home from Portofino. When I call the store, I say "Hey Kevin," and he immediately delights me with his currently shortened version, "Two Veggie Hoagies." I look forward to the days when Kevin and I are elders, and he simply refers to me as "Veg" or "Hoag" or just "Two." Maybe he’ll lose his voice in the end, and have to simply hold up a couple fingers when he sees me. That’d be great.

Any way it works out, I’m happy to know that Northside is the type of neighborhood where dreams really do come true.