Mama, Pappy and Bubba

I don't know why it all started, but a few months ago my Dad and I had been talking on the phone and he said he was going to switch the call over to my mother. Only he said, "I'll give you to your Mama."

Now I have never called her Mama in 60 years, and she and I both cracked up that he had said it. But then the next night he said it again. And the next night. Until, through sheer repetition, her name became Mama, and I have now started saying "Hi, Mama" when she comes on the line.

Then one night a few weeks ago, she decided that if she was going to get a new name after six decades then so could I. So when I said, "Hi, Mama," she told me that from now on if her new name was Mama then mine was going to be Bubba. We both had a good laugh because Bubba is just not a name our New England family has dealt with. However, I knew I was in for it the next night when Dad answered the phone with "How are you, Bubba?" And it has stuck since then.

So, it is just the sort of silliness that makes families laugh. Well, kind of. Yesterday Mama told me that she had been shopping and saw a box of frozen hamburgers called Bubba Burgers. "I had to buy them," she told me, even though she had never bought frozen hamburgers in her life. And then this morning my father (whom I now call Pappy) sent me e-mail pictures of the Bubba Burgers box.

This being the era of Google, I can now tell you that Bubba Burgers were invented in the early 1990s by Walter "Bubba" Eaves. The company's web site says that Bubba's dream was "to create a burger that he would be proud to serve to his friends at his home." Which doesn't seem like all that grand a dream to me, but perhaps if you're named Bubba it is.

And, much like George W, it was Mission Accomplished for Bubba. Again, to quote the web site, ". . . he was so proud of his creation he named his burger the BUBBA burger®. With these high standards, the BUBBA burger® was born!"

Surprisingly, the company making the BUBBA burger® is not the first one to get mentioned when you google the words Bubba + Burger. That actually belongs to a small chain of restaurants in Kauai Hawaii known as Bubba's, (if you hadn't already guessed the name). The restaurants specialize in burgers and in fact their menu offers a wide range of burgers. They are the Bubba, the Double Bubba, the Big Bubba, the Slopper and the Double Slopper. And if you really want to know what the Double Slopper is, you can check out the menu yourself here.

And while you're there, check out the rest of this site. It is one of the funniest and most entertaining sites I've visited. You just need to know that Kuaui's Bubba restaurants have as their motto: "We cheat tourists, drunks and attorneys." And at the bottom of their menu, they tell you that you can add lettuce and tomato for $1, but then caution: "Not Recommended. Been served without it since 1936."

And while they don't appear to be freezing and shipping Big Bubba Burgers or the Double Slopper to the world outside Hawaii, you can order some items.

My favorite is a package of beans called "Bubba's Organic Bubble Bath". Its directions are simple: "Cook and eat with 1 bowl Bubba's Budweiser Chili 1 hour BEFORE bath time."

Anyhow, enough about the various Bubba burgers and back to the main subject of our new names. It must be time to give Linda Maureen a new name in line with Mama, Pappy and Bubba. Perhaps Linda-Mo? Oh, never mind. I have already been calling her that for years.