May 19: El Barto
For as long as I can remember, people referred to my dad as El Barto.
Now that I am a little older and I understand a little Spanish, I know
that El means 'the' and o is a suffix that designates masculinity. So a
literal translation of El Barto is "the male Bart."
El Barto sounds cooler.
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My dad's real name is not Bart. That was simply the moniker he picked for himself when he entered the competitive field of radio. I believe he started on the east coast and eventually emigrated to Saskatchewan, where he met my mother. At one point, there had to be a conversation about how a guy named Ian managed to start dubbing himself Bart.
I think this was my dad's inspiration:
That's Jack Kelly, who played the role of Bart Maverick in an old Western TV show called Maverick. My dad likes westerns so he likely named himself after a childhood hero. I imagine he was devastated when the late 1980s arrived and then the world's most famous Bart became this guy here:
There are some famous Barts.
There's Bart Bradley, who played one hockey game for the Boston Bruins. There's Bart Evans, who pitched for the Kansas City Royals. And of course there's Bartholomew Roberts, who was a pirate and was known as Black Bart.
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I'm glad my dad didn't name me Bart. I would have tired of the Simpsons jokes. Also, it's easy to yell that name when someone's mad at you. Sometimes, people would call my dad and I would answer the phone and they would say: "BART!!!" and it sounded like a gunshot. Also, there was this one old lady who used to call my dad from the lodge and she would pronounce his name like this: BAWT.
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My dad has a vanity plate on his car that says EL BARTO. It is cool. I like it. But I am happy he doesn't call his car the Bartmobile. That would just be too pretentious.
El Barto sounds cooler.
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My dad's real name is not Bart. That was simply the moniker he picked for himself when he entered the competitive field of radio. I believe he started on the east coast and eventually emigrated to Saskatchewan, where he met my mother. At one point, there had to be a conversation about how a guy named Ian managed to start dubbing himself Bart.
I think this was my dad's inspiration:
That's Jack Kelly, who played the role of Bart Maverick in an old Western TV show called Maverick. My dad likes westerns so he likely named himself after a childhood hero. I imagine he was devastated when the late 1980s arrived and then the world's most famous Bart became this guy here:
There are some famous Barts.
There's Bart Bradley, who played one hockey game for the Boston Bruins. There's Bart Evans, who pitched for the Kansas City Royals. And of course there's Bartholomew Roberts, who was a pirate and was known as Black Bart.
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I'm glad my dad didn't name me Bart. I would have tired of the Simpsons jokes. Also, it's easy to yell that name when someone's mad at you. Sometimes, people would call my dad and I would answer the phone and they would say: "BART!!!" and it sounded like a gunshot. Also, there was this one old lady who used to call my dad from the lodge and she would pronounce his name like this: BAWT.
-
My dad has a vanity plate on his car that says EL BARTO. It is cool. I like it. But I am happy he doesn't call his car the Bartmobile. That would just be too pretentious.
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