What's in a name?

As thanksgiving approaches every year I get another chance to tell the origin of my name.

While one phenomena has always been that everyone, including my wife, has always called me by my full name. Tom Ray. As if it were one word.

But the real story is the first name, Tom.

My parents had a sense of humor and this is the story they told me when I was young.

Since I was born around thanksgiving, they named me Tom. So if you get that reference at all, they basically told me I’m named after Tom Turkey. Which seemed normal because my grandma did like to call me a turkey.

As great as a story that is to tell a young boy, they weren’t done yet.

They informed my that I was lucky I was born around that time. Since it was the dawn of the disco era, they told me originally my name was to be Sunshine.

Think about that for a second. Sunshine Ray.

If this whole story is true I could have grown up to be a very different person.

So thank you turkey!