Charles v. Bob

I am a Jr., Robert my middle name, and I grew up as Bobby and later Bob. My brother still calls me Bob. So, I discover in recent email, do my former colleagues in grad school as we touch base about the upcoming reunion. So how did I become Charles?

I published for the first time as a mathematician, under Bob. Later, when at UCLA, I published some terrible poetry under Bob. But when I started writing journalism and literary short stories, I began publishing under Charles. Not sure why, just did. But I was still known to friends as Bob through grad school and in Maryland after grad school.

When I came to Portland after my traumatic divorce in the late 1970s, I think becoming Charles personally as well as professionally was part of my New Life strategy. No one in Portland knows me as Bob. I don't even respond to Bob any more, it's been so long ago. A few friends in Portland, hearing about this name-change, started calling me Charley Bob. That was cool.

Here's a funny story related to all this, which I've told before but which is worth telling again. My brother came to a play opening of mine when I was playwright-in-residence at the New Rose Theatre. At the reception afterwards, the director took me aside and pointed across the room at my brother. There's a very weird guy here, he said, who keeps coming up to everyone and saying, Hi, I'm Bob's brother! No one knew who the hell he was talking about! (Later my brother commented what snobs theater people are.)

I think in Eugene at the reunion, I'll just get used to being Bob for a few days in order to spare endless explanation of becoming Charles.