An Anecdote That Is Not Actually About R. Buckminster Fuller

[jwgh]

When I was visiting my father the other week, I mentioned the R. Buckminster Fuller stamp to my father, which led him to speculate what horrible name the 'R' must stand for since he apparently preferred being called 'Buckminster' or 'Bucky' to being called whatever his real first name was.

So I looked it up.

His first name was 'Richard'.

Which also happens to be my father's first name. (Except he doesn't go by Richard either; his friends call him Dick.)

I feel like there's a moral here, but as usual I'm not sure what it is.

[I should note, even though it ruins the story a little, that Bucky's father's first name was also Richard, so maybe he was called Bucky by the family to distinguish him from his dad.]

Comments

[wisn.livejournal.com]

My grandfather violently abhorred the name 'Joseph' and insisted on being called by his middle name, 'Kempton'. Sometimes people have mental associations that aren't easily fathomed.

Well.

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

That's one less excuse for my not being able to be "R," then.

I'm now picturing some kind of cross between Manfire and Richard Dauntless: "'Bucky,' my brain says (it calls me that arcause it's known me from a babby), 'Bucky,' it says, 'you've got to think of this city as the Big Top, spinning, spinning!'"

[waider.livejournal.com]

My Dad is also Richard, and is more often than not known as Dick. In fact, hearing him referred to as Richard sounds overly formal to me, as I'm so used to hearing such phrases as, "ah, you're Dick Waide's son!"