Boogy!

Bloganuary writing prompt

Write about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc.

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Brrrrr, it’s been cold around here. It’s so cold that I’ve been having trouble getting enough exercise. There’s not enough snow to snowshoe on, too much snow to walk on the icy streets, and the malls are boring. My daily retreat to the shop is on hold because It’s so cold I’m having trouble warming it to a temperature I can work in.
Desperate to keep my exercise levels up, I have resorted to using the music on my phone to provide a soundtrack for my pacing, running in place, and dancing around inside. It’s me announcing my defiance of January! It’s not going to make a couch potato out of me.

I select a playlist and dance my way through it. It’s too cold and snowy for me to worry that a neighbor passing by might get a glance of me prancing around to Dire Straits, Billy Joel, or AC/DC.
The rock playlists they might understand. It’s when the folk stuff comes on that things get strange. I am sure the Kweskin Jug Band never saw their music as dancing material. But at about ten PM, I am putting down some hot moves to “Good Time Charlie” or “Somebody Stole My Girl.”
Now, my relationship with this style of music is not merely as an interested bystander who owns an album. No Sir. It sits at the very root of who I am. Or at least of who I was when I was a wandering ne’er do well folksinger back in 1965. Some of those songs were part of my performance repertoire.

I performed at local coffeehouses in New England, with Lou Carson as a stage name. One hot romantic night, a young lady I was enamored with couldn’t get my name straight. Her utterances wandered from Lou to Les and finally settled on Wes. Friends were so amused by this that they used it as my nickname. It became part of my stage name when someone announced me as Wes Carson.
Wes was so often used to signify me that for years, I was known in Maine and other parts by that name alone. If you mentioned Lou Carreras, there would be blank stares.

So here I am doing the boogy in the living room. As I boogy, my mind drifts to odd things like names, places I’ve been, and women who couldn’t get a simple name straight. I’m waiting for it to warm up enough to play with plants in the garden or get my sorry ass outside to drag around.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.