Otha

When people first started calling me “Skip,” I told them not to. Useless to resist, though. I was, twenty-three and everyone went to this bar in Hoboken called Block and Tackle. This wasn’t a football reference, it was a fishing thing; they had nets tacked up and seashells on the walls. There were plastic crabs and lobsters in the nets. And the place didn’t even serve seafood, or any food at all for that matter. We went there because the B and T had the cheapest drinks, the cheapest by far. If I named the prices I’d be called a liar and a fabricator. I started wearing a captain’s hat that I bought in a Salvation Army for a dime. It had the blue top, the little gold anchor, the short black plastic brim.

I wore it as a gag: not many people remember that when they talk to writers about me. It was like, look at me, I’m a fisherman. Look at these plastic crabs. I even grew a big black beard like I’d been out to sea. We thought that was pretty funny at the time. None of us had ever been on any boats except maybe the ferry.

I started actually to like the hat, and before I knew it I was wearing it around to other bars. I got used to it. Also it was easy to pick me out of the crowd in a packed saloon, and once in a while someone would send me a drink when they spotted the hat down the bar. I wore the hat every day until a show called “Gilligan’s Island” became popular, and there was this character “The Skipper” who wore the hat. He was old, sort of chubby, and had white hair. So that was that. But Skip stuck as my name, to the point where I sign my letters with the name, and rarely hear “Arturo” unless it’s a creditor on the phone.

Thought of all this because Bo Diddley died today. I know that he was called Elias McDaniel before he was called Bo Diddley but before that his first name was Otha something. Bo Diddley was just some name they came up with. Maybe after the diddley-bow, a one-stringed hilbilly guitar. Bompa Bompa Bompa. Bomp Bomp. Buddy Holly lifted that beat for “Not Fade Away,” and everybody else stole it from there. Was Buddy’s given name Buddy? Hard to say without looking it up, and I'm not about to look it up.