I grew up knowing a few folks named Skeet or Skeeter. It's a pretty common name in the South. The first Skeeter I knew was a boy a little younger than me. His family, mine and several others from church would gather every month or so at one of our homes. The parents would play dominoes or cards while munching the elaborate party snacks our mothers had found in the most recent edition of Good Housekeeping or Red Book. Us kids, usually ten to twenty of us, had our own snacks and drinks set up outside. About the third time someone ran inside to whine to a parent or to use the bathroom, the adults would lock us out. We all thought that terribly unjust, but we loved being out in the dark with friends, playing chase, telling ghost stories & doing the things kids do. Eventually someone would get a scraped knee or the mosquitoes (skeeters!) would get too bad and we'd be allowed back inside, consigned to a den or rec room or garage with board games and a record player.

When I was old enough to go to school I met other Skeets and Skeeters. The name is assigned to both boys and girls, and I also knew adults whom we addressed as Miss Skeeter or Mr. Skeet. We children of the South in the fifties and sixties were very polite and always attached an honorific to the front of adults' names. Actually, not so much because we were polite, but because we knew we would be severely punished for failure to do so.

Here's the history of how I became skeet. It didn't come from my parents. It's the abbreviated version of the name my big brother gave me when we were quite young. He drug it out whenever he wanted to torture his little sis. Eddie and I were quite close and I loved him dearly, but he was a terrible tease. My parents named me Anita Bess. My mother, her mother and my great-grandmother were all named Bessie. Mom wanted the tradition to continue but hated the name. The adult relatives must have approved of her choice, because they always addressed me by the double-barreled version, and those who are still around do it to this day. It's a Southern thing. Our across-the-street neighbor, Mom's best friend, also did it. She was a New Orleans gal (we're originally from Texas) and she pronounced me in that dialect found only there and in Brooklyn, New York, so to her I was Neeter Bess. What a perfect opportunity she created for Eddie! The segue from Neeter Bess to Skeeter Bess originally came in a fit of anger, and fit nicely into a chanting phrase he created when he wanted to make me miserable. "Skeeter Bess, she's a mess ..." It followed me everywhere and was eventually picked up by neighborhood kids who liked torturing animals and small girls. By the time I entered junior high it had been forgotten by the masses, but Skeeter Bess had developed into a pet name at home. Eddie was the one who used it most often, partly as a reminder of his own cleverness in creating it, but mostly as an expression of affection.

I first got online about eight years ago. I tried on various screen names for size, but none of them seemed to feel right. Eddie had died a few years earlier, and I still frequently thought of myself as Skeeter Bess when I remembered our childhood antics. As I began to develop online friendships, it occurred to me that my screen name had been waiting for me in the wings all along. I became skeeterbess once again as a tribute to his memory. It is shortened to skeet or skeeter by many of my friends, but in my mind it's always the full moniker, and frequently chanted in Eddie's voice: "Skeeter Bess, she's a mess ..."

A month or so ago I discovered that skeet is now a dirty word. The definition bothered me enough that I thought about changing my name and the name of my blog. That was before I understood the wonderful world of page rank. I found something interesting when I installed a stat tracker. I get "hits" daily from folks looking for the street slang usuage, so many that google will eventually take notice and quit calling me a zero. I don't know of any adults who use the word that way and my blog is not addressed to those children, so I've decided to keep it. It has a long and mostly honorable history, and it's been mine longer than it's been theirs. If you get a little squeamish like me when you hear it used that other way, think instead of the affectionate teasing of a small boy for his baby sister. Think of skeet and come on by for a visit with a proud holder of the name. My google rank will thank you!

Labels: family, friends, memories, nicknames, siblings