Most of the time he'd address me as 'Kiddo', 'Son' or my given name but not always. Dad could come up with all sorts of off the wall crap off the top of his head to call me depending on the situation. None of the names ever stuck but the list never ceased to amaze me.
Things like 'Hey! Bazoo Botts' would pop up out of nowhere.
Looking back on it, one of my favorites was when he addressed me with "Hey! Almost a plumber! What the hell are you doing?"
He saw a copper coupling, flux, a torch and a tubing cutter on the top of the stepladder. The cold water pipe had already been cut and I was draining the pipes into a bucket.
I explained that the copper had sprung a pinhole leak and I was going to fix it with the coupling.
"Well, you could have at least let us know!" he said. He looked pretty comical with half a face covered with shaving cream.
He had been shaving when the water stopped and a few seconds heard air sucking back into the faucet as the line drained. He had come straight into the cellar only to find me.
He just shook his head and went upstairs and wiped the shaving cream off of his face and told Mom to wait a few minutes before she used any water.
I was done in about 10 or 15 minutes, turned the water back on and put everything away and came upstairs. Dad turned to Mom and said, "Almost a plumber here has it under control."
Mom asked Dad if he was going to inspect my work and he simply replied, "I don't have to. Your son is perfectly capable of sweating a fitting."
I became 'Almost a plumber' for the next couple of days.
I recall things got busy and Dad didn't get to finish his shave for a few hours. Dad had a very heavy beard and looked funny half-shaven.
If I recall the only name he ever used more than once was 'Pimplebrain' which got occasionally used after I'd pull a pimplebrained stunt of some sort.
It was an amazing gift and I'll be damned if I ever figured out where he could come up with stuff like that but it was pretty entertaining.
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