People ask me with depressing regularity if my nickname came from the flying squirrel, the boxer, or the raccoon. I politely note that I came a couple of decades before any of those guys.
When I was a kid, Mom and Dad always told me I got my nickname before I was born. Dad said they expected I would be a “hard rock,” and they began calling me “Rocky” before I arrived.
Okay, I accepted that. But sometime after college, the subject came up with Mom, and she cast a surprising new light on things.
Did I remember, she asked, that occasionally through the years, she called me “Rock Daniel”?
It’s true, she did. I always thought it might be an oblique reference to my brother, Thomas Daniel Smith, or my uncle, John Daniel Smith.
Not so. Mom said the name came from one of her favorite songs of the early 1940s, “Rock Daniel” by Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Sister Rosetta was a guitar-playing gospel superstar who crossed over to record popular music.
Flying squirrel? Boxer? Raccoon? Not me, pal.
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I remember the name “Rock Daniel” but I didn’t know it’s origins…….how AWESOME that I got to hear the song!!