I had a great childhood and loved hanging out with my dad. However, for a long time, there was one thing Dad said that puzzled me.
Scroll down to read why I was confused.
Why Did My Dad Think My Name was Stu?
My dad was very handy around the house. I don’t remember a plumber, handyman, carpenter, gardener or painter ever coming to the house when I was growing up. Dad always repaired whatever was broken and built whatever we needed for the house. Household maintenance and improvement projects consumed a large portion of Dad’s free time at home. I gladly took every opportunity to be his helper or at least be there and keep him company.
My dad was a patient man and tried to teach me how to be a good helper. In the beginning, it was simply fetching tools or parts for him. Later on, I was his second set of hands. I then progressed to getting assigned different tasks to do, which, in theory, assisted him.Whenever Dad showed me how to do something; he’d ask, “See Stu?” To learn how to pound nails into a piece of wood, he first hammered some in and explained to me the proper way to swing the hammer for maximum effect. Then he gave me the hammer and asked, “See Stu?” For many years, my dad quite often asked me the same question, “See Stu?” I liked my unique nickname, Stu, and treasured it as something special between the two of us. This was the explanation I preferred, rather than the possibility he forgot my name and was covering it up by calling me Stu.
I was in high school when I discovered the genesis of my nickname. In German class, we were studying German idioms, and our teacher was explaining the German phrase, “Siehst du,” translated into English as, “Do you see?” or the more descriptive version, “Do you understand?” Son-of-a-gun, right there, in the middle of the class, an imaginary light bulb illuminated above my head. I realized that, although my dad spoke no German, somewhere he picked up the German phrase, “Siehst du,” pronounced, “see-st-doo,” and when he used the phrase, to me, it sounded precisely like, “See Stu?” I laughed out loud in class when I realized that for the last ten years, I had a nickname, that was not a nickname at all.
My Observation: For gosh sake, if you don’t understand something, ask.