I think it must have been 9th grade. That has to have been the last time that anyone has teased me about my name. I’ll be the first to admit that my last name is not what could be considered ‘normal’. I am certainly not a ‘Smith’ or ‘Jones’. Today I’m flying out of Nashville’s central hub of commerce and tourism, the ‘BNA’, or Nashville International Airport. On my way through security, I had a brief reminder of what it was like in 9th grade when one of the security guards caught a glance at my boarding pass. ‘Bad Moon Rising’ he says, laughing. That one never gets old. What a meat ball. Through elementary school, Jr. High school and part of high school, I have been called all sorts of creative names, many of them phallic in nature, but this one was totally lost on me when I was growing up. How was a 12 year old boy scout child of the 80’s supposed to know who CCR was? Don’t even get me started on LA Woman. What the heck does Mr. Mojo Rising mean anyhow?

Ah… the boy scouts. Boy scout camp is actually the first time I heard a variation on the theme of ‘Bad Moon Rising’. You see, it rained the entire week of camp, and my bunk was close to the edge of the tent. I had placed my suitcase a bit too close to the wall of the tent, and so all of my clothes wound up soaking wet. Including a new pair of underwear that had a distinct blue band at the edges. Well, ‘boys will be boys’… and some of the older scouts thought it would be funny to initiate the younger ones by having them strip down naked and stand on the boat dock. Can you guess the variation? ‘Blue Moon Rising’. Yeah. That’s the sort of pain that only kids can inflict on each other.

Another thing I don’t understand about my name is … why is it so bloody hard for people to spell it or even pronounce it? It seems like everyone that I have to give my name to insists on spelling it the hard way… like they assume that it can’t possibly be as easy as it really is. Rising. Like the sun. Like dough. Like Inflation. Like the deficit. Like Jesus. I am constantly having to spell it for people too. R-I-S-I-N-G. See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?

I also get mail for all sorts of people I don’t know:

Jim Reising
Jim Raysing
Jim Reisen
Jim Risin
Jim Risen
Jim Rhyesing

If you know any of these folks, let them know I have their mail.