My Maternal Grandmother had a nickname for me, not sure of the spelling but it was something like:
Deicher Boo
I’ve tried search German, Dutch, Pennsylvania Dutch…with zero hits. I’m starting to think it was a well-intended version of “Devil Boy/Child”. I will not dispute it. I was a little spoiled monster in my childhood. Maybe that’s why the Universe threw so much at me at an early age.
I loved my Grandmother, even if her nickname for me was remotely true or even worse. How much did I love her? She use to make me jelly sandwiches with butter. I hated that butter on them, but I loved her so much, I never said a word.
Part of my demon child years was that I would disassemble anything that could be taken apart. Toys mostly. But I had a “passion” for taking apart my Mom’s music boxes. The mechanics of them fascinated me. I would remove the “chords” and notice how the tune changed. My toys had all kinds of moving parts…until they didn’t. They way certain sections interacted with others was amazing. It was like seeing the “Magic” inside.
I want to blame the men in my family who took their cars apart to fix them, perform engine swaps, and usually ended up destroying my swing sets used at engine hoists. My father’s last job was a machinist before he retired, so to say it was in my blood is an understatement. For I would someday swap mowing engines, and my first truck’s engine. Swapped out the trusty old Slant-6 out for a 400 cu. in. V8 that eventually caught on fire. Thus ending that phase of my life. I was literally playing with fire.
My passion for learning what made things tick led to my career in the Military. Where I got paid to take things apart (and hopefully put them back together) in working condition.
So Mom, if you are up there listening….the great Toy/Music Box Massacre of the 1970’s eventually paid off for me. So…thank you. 🙂