Thousands?
Why do people still expect me to find their comment original and laugh?
As recently as two days ago, I heard something like this for the umpty-umpteenth time:
"Let me introduce you," says the friend. "This is Robley Hood."
The stranger extends a hand and says as if making up a one-of-a-kind joke, "Nice to meet you. So you're named Robin Hood?" Wink, wink.
"No," I say, "my name is Robley."
Stranger says, "I thought your parents wanted you to rob from the rich . . . " and so on.
If I were brave, I'd cut these people off, but I don't. Sometimes, a few actually want to know where I got my name.
I tell them, proudly:
My parents named me for my father's stepfather, Robley Charles Munger. Daddy loved his Uncle Bob, which is what he called him. He was the only father Daddy knew, though Robley C. Munger fathered two other children -- Robley C. Munger, Jr. and Bertha Munger (Anderson). Daddy wasn't related to the first. The second was his half-sister. My aunt used to say that she had two brothers exactly the same age, although they weren't related to each other!
All I know about the man I'm named for is that heloved my father and that he worked with a paint company into which he brought my father. I also know that Bob's father, Robert S. Munger, loved my father, and that my parents loved me and wanted me to carry the over-the-sheets family name. As a result, I am Robley Munger Hood, the only female Robley (as far as I know) in the extended family.
Despite the awful jokes that have increasingly irritated me over my lifetime, I love having the unusual name inherited from a man I never met, who, I was told, was named for a friend of his family in Texas, where the lived before coming to Alabama.
For all I know, Daddy's Uncle Bob might have wondered about his name, too. Maybe folks made jokes about that Robley's name, too.
Imagine it:
"I'd like to introduce you to my friend Robley Munger."
Stranger says, "Wanna get a bite?" Wink, wink.
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