Around 1990, I started attending the same church my parents met and were married in. There was about a 20–year gap between when they went to the church and when I went there. However, there was one constant at the church in those two times: the preacher.

For the first couple of months, I only really knew him as ‘Brother Bob’. Yes, due to the quant colloquialisms of the South, we refer to all fellow Baptists as ‘Brother This’ or ‘Sister That’. For people under 50 it can be kinda jarring when you first hear it. But this was a different time, back in the early 90s, when you could still get away with calling people ‘Brother This’ or ‘Sister That’.

When my father started questioning me about the people who still attended the church from his time, he asked me about Brother Mac. I didn’t know a Brother Mac. But my father kept insisting that I did.

I did not. We circled the issue over and over. No resolution was found.

It would rather dull my blistering image as a thought leader, I fear, to tell you the preacher’s name. His name of Bob McCullough. This man was both Brother Bob and Brother Mac – he was just that talented.

Plus, the different generations affixed to different names. One chose Mac, the other chose Bob. Who knows why? It would be simpler to explain how children pick their grandparent’s names.

In the rather short period of five months, I figured out that the Bob guy was the same as the Mac guy. Took me a while, sure, but how long did it take you? Huh?

If you say less than 20 seconds, I will hurt you.

You can call me Mac

A few years ago, I affixed my own moniker to a website, adding a popular brand name to my own surname. At the time, it was to show my devotion to a particular kind of computer. Since those years, my love of the platform has waned, but those pesky search engines continue to think I care.

I was thinking about myself a few months ago (surprise there!), and how I’ve always been the nickname guy. All through High School, the Army, and college, I tended to accrue nicknames like some people accrue speeding tickets: way too many, and none you really wanna talk about. For some reason, while I was trying to build my own internet identity, something odd happened.

While I was commenting like a champion, people started referring to me as ‘Mac’. Mac was not my nickname. They didn’t seem to care. I became Mac.

The story would probably end there, then, I guess, if it not been for my affections for the man who got my parents together and who recruited the second–most influential person in my life. In honor of him, I’ve picked up the Mac name. It doesn’t hurt that my given name is the extremely–rare ‘John’, and that’ll give me some hedging whenever I’m in a room full of people.

So call me Mac, or John, but never call me late for dinner!

Or an ambulance. I can’t stand lame jokes...he lied…

status: published
lastmod: '2008-12-18T12:06:00.000Z'
excerpt: |-
  So call me Mac, or John, I’ll answer. But never call me late for dinner!

  Or an ambulance. I can’t stand lame jokes...he lied…
author: meadowhill login
cms: textpattern
custom:
  section: articles
  custom_1: mac john+stansbury history baptists