What's The Story Behind Your FR Handle?

Free Republic ^ | 23 July 2017 | Windy

[Windflier]

I've always wondered about the origins and meanings (if any) behind others Freeper handles. Its a quiet Sunday morning, so I thought it would be an interesting topic to start the day.

What's the story behind your handle?

[Alas Babylon!]

I was a big fan of the book Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank. Dystopian stories are some of my favorites, and this book is one of the best, and the details of how to put a society back together, etc., are amazing.

But more than that, as a Christian, having read the Bible numerous times, I can't help but reflect on America as the Great Babylon of the End Times as written about in Revelation, and the line that is the title of Pat Frank's book.

Read it yourself and tell me this isn't about the USA:

Babylon the Great has fallen!

[Dr. Sivana]

Didn’t work too well, did it?

As long as dogs don't raise your leg at you, consider yourself ahead of the game.

[Flintlock]

It ‘s the ONLY REAL way to shoot .

All these little brassey thingys in guns are just a passing fad.

[mazda77]

My first race car. Mazda RX7

[Fai Mao]

A phonetic transliteration of my name into Chinese that literally means “Fat Cat.” I used to run a blog called Fai Mao’s Sandbox but seldom post to it anymore.

[T-Bird45]

45th Infantry Division, the “Thunderbird” Division - the Oklahoma National Guard Division called into service in WW2 and the first called for Korea. My step-father was part of the Korea call-up, having joined after WW2 service to continue service for retirement credit. He ended up not being sent to Korea, instead staying at Ft. Polk in the training cadre. That also ended his desire to get the retirement credit.

I served in the 45th Infantry Brigade of the OKARNG after leaving active duty in the early 80s.

[Windflier]

Ah...a play on words. Now that you’ve explained it, I won’t forget.

[Berosus]

The first forum I joined online was an ancient history club that no longer exists. Berosus was a Babylonian historian who lived around 300 B.C. Unfortunately only bits and pieces of his work have survived to our time.

[pinkandgreenmom]

I wear a lot of pink and green Lilly Pulitzer clothes and I’m a mom, so....

[hardspunned]

Hardspun, my favorite thorobred.

[Ulmius]

My handle came from my love of American nature, especially trees. I learned about the American elm as I researched. The American elm (Ulmus americanus) used to dominate the canopies of Eastern North America. It was the most desired tree for urban landscaping due to its elegant umbrella-shaped canopy, its longevity, and its resistance to pollution. It would also make a graceful arch naturally as its branches touched another elm's. However, Dutch elm disease was released from foreign cargo ships in the '30s, and the amount of American elms plummeted by over 90%. It has taken until this century to produce sustainable crossbred cultivars with its Chinese cousins, but it is slowly making a comeback. I added the "ius" to "Ulm" in the style of the Founding Fathers using Latin nommes de plume in the Federalist Papers, like "Publius"

[Skooz]

When I was in college, a friend brought a stray cat to my house and left him for me to keep. I didn’t want a cat, so I tried to give him away for weeks, to no avail.

By that time I had grown find of the little guy. I decided to keep him. I named him Skooz. He became a friend; a comfort on tough days. No matter how my day had gone, he was always there to cuddle at the end of it.

A few years later he developed feline leukemia and I had to put him down. Broke my heart.

So, I named my handle after a dead cat.

[ThePatriotsFlag]

During the Obama Administration, I flew only Historic Patriot flags, never the USA flag. I had 14 flags I flew. People would ask me about them and I’d learned the history of each one. On the day of Trump’s inauguration, I put up the best USA flag I could buy. Along the hem by the flag pole I put the date and time it first flew. That moment was when Obama was history and we had a Patriot (rather than Islamic) President once again. My new flag even has a soft spotlight lighting it at night. That’s why I’m “ThePatriotsFlag.”

[x1stcav]

Started using it as a call sign and authenticator in the early ‘70s.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

My band’s soundman had just returned from his honeymoon. I called his number and got the answering machine. I just started riffing, in a Paki accent:
“Oh no! This is Doctor Bogus Pachysandra, from the Cleveland Free Sex Clinic. Don’t touch that thing! Don’t let anybody touch that thing! I’m a doctor and I won’t toch that thing!”
His new bride got the message machine answer before Bob got home! I guess they had quite a conversation before they figured out it was me! They called an hour later, laughing their butts off!

[TrueFact]

Back when I was in the aerospace industry in the 1980s some punk estimator was trying to convince me of something that was utter bs by calling in a “true fact”. I mocked him saying such a phrase was redundant. When I was lurking on FR the phrase kept coming to mind as maybe not redundant. When I couldn’t take the 2000 election anymore and finally signed up, that was my choice. Now it seems almost prescient.

[Windflier]

Militia call sign.

Cool. Mine became my biker handle, back when I used to ride. On my first forum, everyone went by their real world biker handles.

[Dr. Sivana]

Thanks for that bit of comic book trivia. Though I’m in my mid sixties, I wasn’t aware of that character.

In the '40s, Captain Marvel outsold Superman. He was pretty much sued into oblivion in lawsuit that cost more than it merited. These days he is referred to as "Shazam" after the wizard who gave him his powers, but that struck me as a lame way to get away from the copyright issues (Marvel Comics has their own, negligible character with that name, and what remains of the trademark).

[buckalfa]

Mine is my auto assigned log on ID for the business computer system used in my working days from back in the mid ninety’s.