happily ever after (Toastmasters speech #1)

Speech originally given on Oct. 21, 2004
Award: Best speaker

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"Happy? Your name is Happy? My dad had a dog named Happy."  (These are the first words my ex-husband ever said me.)


For some reason, when many people first meet me, they completely lose the ability to edit what comes out of their mouths. You see, my name is Happy Feliz _______.

Those of you who are bilingual (or are familiar with a certain Christmas Song by Jose Felicano) know that my name translates to Happy Happy _______.

My parents tell me that they chose my name as a reflection of their state of mind, and not as a predictor for my personality. You see, my mom wanted a boy and dad wanted a girl. They agreed that if I were a girl, I'd share my mother's initials - H F A.

My mother was named for her grandmother - Higinia, a very old-fashioned Spanish name --and since she had endured many childhood traumas with her own name, they opted not to saddle me with a name that kids would make fun of ... or so they thought ...

Happy Cat cat food came onto the market when I was in fourth grade. To be fair, my name was made fun of well before the cat food was released. However, there was (to my mind) a noticeable increase in negative attention my name got that year.

Perhaps that's why I told a girl at my dad's company picnic that year that my name was Christy. It started out innocently enough -- she was playing on the swings when I walked over and asked her what her name was. She told me hers and then asked me mine.

For a split second, I started to give the same old answer, but suddenly, I had a flash of inspiration. I probably chose Christy because that was the name of the most popular girl in my class. Whatever the reason, I gladly played with her for about an hour before my pleasant little fantasy of having a normal name came to a screeching halt because of something my dad said.

"Happy, lunch is ready. Come and get your hamburger."

I heard it her chortle and say "why did he call you Happy? I thought your name was Christy."

And there I was, with the blood rushing into my cheeks and my knees wobbling. Then I heard my father's gentle voice, saying matter-of-factly:
"Christy? No, her name is Happy."

At that point, I was intensely studying the grass underneath my feet and the ants marching toward the picnic tables in the distance. I just couldn't look at my dad. I picked at the stain on my shorts, desperate to not have to look up. And when I finally met the other girl's eyes, she was smirking.

Ten years later, I was at my then-boyfriend Eric's house, talking with his teenage cousins. Andrea was the first one to point out that if I married Eric, my name would be Happy Snow. Defensively, I snapped back that I would NOT be Happy Snow, since I would DEFINITELY be keeping my maiden name if I ever married her cousin.

Six years later, Eric and I were in Greece on our honeymoon, when we met a New Yorker with a wry sense of humor.

"What's your name?" he asked.
I proudly replied: "Happy _____-Snow," to which he said "Happy _______-Snow -- that sounds like nose candy."

To be fair, his WAS one of the more interesting comments I've heard. That's because people's reactions when they meet me vary widely. If they didn't hear me right, or think that it's not possible that my name is Happy, they will repeat my name, saying "Cathy?", at which point I say "Happy. H - A - P - P - Y." (For the record, my Starbucks name is Beyonce, because baristas can spell that.)

Then there are the others whose comments include references to Hoppalong Cassidy, Happy-go-lucky, or the question about my parents being hippies. Since I'm on the topic, I'd like to set the record straight. My father was a fighter pilot in Vietnam and my mother is a fascist. Literally. Her family supported Franco in the Spanish civil war.

I can't imagine two people who could be more opposite of flower children than my parents. They had planned to name me Hope right up until the very end of my mother's pregnancy. Then, for some reason, Happy Rockefeller was in the news. Happy Rockefeller was the second lady (the vice president's wife) when I was born in 1975.

The funny thing is that I don't think my parents ever intended for my name to be such a focal point in my life. But the fact is my name has a lot to do with who I am. It's hard for me to have a bad day because I'll get the "is happy happy today?" or "they should've named you grumpy." When I was younger, I would actually answer those rhetorical questions with a heated retort like "they should've named you rude."

But nowadays, I just smile and shrug off the comment, because it's hard to have a bad day when your name is Happy. It really is too much work.

For instance just this week, I had the opportunity to remind myself of how much energy it takes for me to be negative ... when I encountered a guy at the gas station that must have thought himself terribly original or clever (or both). I handed my credit card and driver's license to him and, after checking my ID, he handed me my card and said something like "do you have a brother named dopey?" Without skipping a beat, I just smiled, told him that I'm an only child, and walked back out to the pump.

In the last 29 years, I've had lots of nicknames: hapless, h-bomb, and my favorite, "ash" -- for the way that the letter "H" is pronounced en francais. And when I recently divorced, the paperwork included a blank for me to write what I'd like to be called legally.

Christy popped into my head, but the funny thing is, I didn't hesitate to write the name my parents gave me when I was born: Happy Feliz ________.