the Evan Formerly Known as Dave

So, my birth certificate says my name is David Evan Peterson.

I've recently dropped the "David" from mine, though not legally--not yet. Admittedly, changing my name so suddenly at the ripe old age of near-thirty (as I was still 29) can be quite confusing for the people who know me, and a difficult change for them to live with/get used to. I have been "Dave" for so long, to so many people, that it's hard to imagine me as anyone else.

The important question I'm asked least often is "why?"

Now, I share the "why?" And now, when asked the "why?" (online anyway), I can simply direct someone to this posting.

I was named David Peterson, after my father, David Peterson. Our middle names differ.

When I was nine or ten my father was arrested for molesting children (I would say the neighbor friend of his step-daughter and his own neice, but I was young, and the details are lost to me). He was quite guilty of this crime. He was also still my daddy, and I still wanted to love him. Kids are weird that way. This is the same guy who beat me when I was five because I said I was Mexican because I liked tacos. Now I like tacos and burritos--it must really get his ire up. Though I wouldn't know.

(An aside: Nowadays, if your parent is sent to prison for molesting kids you might be lucky enough to be offered counselling services. I was not. No one ever even bothered to try and find out if he ever molested me. He did not, but still... thanks for caring.)

I remember crying for what seemed forever that my daddy was a Bad Man and was going to go to prison.

He would call me on occasion from prison, all sad and contrite, and I ate it all up--hook line and sinker (I'm a lover of cliches).

At thirteen I visited him in prison, staying with his wife in Susanville for two weeks while I was there. I have two memories that are very strong from this trip--only one goes back to him: I remember feeling shamed by him for calling my step-sister a whore when she pissed me off once. Granted, it was wrong of me to call her a whore, but I wonder now at what moral authority he had to chastise me for being a thirteen year-old asshole.

He got out of prison when I was either fifteen or sixteen. He did his parole, and visited me for the first time some day during Christmas break of my senior year in high school (I was seventeen). He drove up, took me to McDonalds, bought me two CDs at Target and then dropped me off at my aunt's. All told, maybe two hours of quality time in which he spent telling me about the sexual activities with his then current live-in girlfriend. Thanks for the quality time there, dad.

Shortly thereafter, he returned to prison, presumably for a parole violation. I really don't know for what exactly. I believe I was told domestic violence. He got back out of prison when I was 22. He began writing me a lot. He'd found God... he was sorry... he understood if I never wanted to see him again... blah blah blah. I wrote him that he would have his final chance with me. He was never a father to me, but he could try to be a part of my life now, and a part of his newborn grandson's life. This opened communication for us and I started to forgive him again. He eventually sent a present for my son's first Christmas (a high chair which we kept and used for more than four years) and then I never heard from him again. Never in the past six years.

For the past twenty years I've been a fairly unhappy person. Last summer I had an epiphany that I was carrying a lot--A LOT-- of father baggage. Getting rid of this baggage seemed to be the obvious solution to some of my problems.

David Peterson is a liar. David Peterson is a closet racist. David Peterson is a child beater. David Peterson is a wife beater. David Peterson is a child abandoner. David Peterson is a child molester.

I am none of these things.

Therefore I am not David Peterson. Nor does David Peterson deserve to have anyone named after him. I sure as Hell won't be.

(It's extremely ironic that "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin is playing on my MP3 player right this second)

So, from now on, I am Evan Peterson. That's why the change.

I'm finally looking into the forms and fees for legally changing my name. As soon as I know how to fill them out, and as soon as I have the money, and as soon as I know what, if anything, I want my new middle name to be, I will legally be Evan Peterson, and will be David nevermore.

By the way, I'm accepting suggestions for a new middle name. it has to sound well spoken aloud with Evan and Peterson, and it has to look well aesthetically when written with them. Feel free to post comments of suggested names or e-mail them. I like heroic names, both fictional and mythological.