Why sabu indeed.

A long, boring, geeky story with no punchline.

Well, about 400 years ago, I joined an organization called DECUS, the Digital Equipment Computer Users Society, and attended my first DECUS Symposium, held in Nashville, TN. DECUS was almost entirely a volunteer organization, and poor hapless me, I was recruited into FIVE volunteer positions, all as assistant to somebody else, before that first Symposium week was out.

One of the positions I "volunteered" for was assisting my now longtime friend AberZ in her role as a member of the DECUS Symposia Committee. During the following symposium, roughly six months later, I was running around like a wild man doing AberZ's bidding. The requests were partly delivered in person, and partly via a large message board located in a central place in the conference facility. You write a message, and pin it to the message board with someone's name on it.

Well, AberZ started leaving me tasks on Post-Its that looked like this (AberZ recently uncovered a half-stack of the Post-Its during a major archeological dig in her house):

Sabu, for you Cretins who don't already get the reference, was an East Indian child actor who typically played the mischievous Indian street-or-jungle urchin type in classics like "Thief of Bagdad" and "Arabian Nights", as well as playing Mowgli in the 1942 adaptation of Kipling's "Jungle Book." In my childhood, Saturday afternoons always seemed to include at least one old b&w Sabu movie. Here is more about that. The Post-It reference (note Garfield wearing the Pith Helmet) is positioning Odie (aka Sabu) as the eager East Indian porter carrying packs and guns for the great colonial English hunter Garfield.

In other words, his assistant.

How apropos.

So, as a momentary goof, I started signing my responses "sabu".

So, equally as a goof, AberZ started addressing things to "sabu", one thing led to another, and it stuck. Hard. A number of people, particularly online, know me only as "sabu". Many more, who know my name, still call me sabu.

"sabu", referring to me, is always in lowercase. I have no recollection why, but it is. Always was.

So there you have it. Tedious, boring geeky story with no punchline. I warned you. Aren't you sorry you asked?

Here's a few more ancillary facts:

(1) My "career" in DECUS lasted nearly 20 years, consumed extraordinary amounts of my time and commitment, taught me a great deal about people and organizations, established lifelong friendships, and when it ended, I had just been elected chair of the DECUS Symposia Committee. That was a substantial position in a substantial organization, overseeing a 7-digit budget, reflected the trust and respect of people I admired and cared deeply for, and so on, but it was a very short-lived bittersweet honor.

(2) DECUS, like Digital Equipment Corporation itself, imploded some years back, during the same Symposium where I was elected chair of the Symposia Committee. All the volunteers were fired, all committees were dissolved, and it was recreated essentially from scratch, this time run by a "Paid Professional Staff." Unlike the Phoenix, DECUS did not rise from it's ashes, and the "replacement" organization isn't even a pale echo of what DECUS was. Some volunteers were asked back. A few came back. I was asked to come back and be appointed part of the board of directors of the new organization. My reply included some reference to the Vichy government, and something about kissing my ass. I forget the details. I closed that chapter of my life and moved on.

(3) There is or was a supposedly Indian-born "professional wrestler" named "Sabu". I'm not him. I'm not named after him. I was sabu when he was in grammar school. Several times, people have seen my license plate and asked if I'm Sabu the wrestler.

I look just like an East Indian professional wrestler. I can see why they're confused.