Nancy Jorgensen
Alias Disclosure
Please note: By responding to this questionnaire, you consent to publication and understand this information could limit or extend boundaries of self-image, professional advancement, social expectations, and/or stereotyping.
Please answer the following questions regarding aliases.
1. Please state the name you are currently known by: Nancy Jorgensen
2. Please list any other names you have been known by in the past:
My wrestling name is The J-Town Slanger. A couple of my choir students, high school boys, gave it to me. They set up imaginary wrestling matches between me and my teaching partner—Super Freak Cathy Snookem. “Big match tonight, J-Town,” they would call as they left for football practice. Talented tenors were hard to come by and if wrestling talk garnered me a few, I played along.
The boys posted our fictional results each morning on the whiteboard, using so much dry-erase marker the room smelled like paint thinner. Super Freak Cathy Snookem and I never took it personally when we lost in the ring. As two women running a 400-student choral program, we’d done our share of fighting and losing.
When we produced Cats or The Music Man or Beauty and the Beast, I sat at the keys, simultaneously playing, and conducting guitarists, drummers, saxophonists, and trumpeters. The pros were there for the money, the kids for the fun. So, while adult musicians made raspy noise penciling in notes, the kids hollered potential names for our group and then insisted we take photos. They named us The JCrew Band, and in their fantasies the shots would adorn our album cover. An official name seemed to legitimize their participation and moor them to the grown-up world.
A few years after my wrestling days, students started calling me Nancy Pants. While male colleagues conducted concerts in tuxes, Super Freak and I were expected to wear gowns. We rebelled and flung silky fuchsia scarves atop our white lapeled jackets and wide-leg satin pants. I appreciated my students’ recognition of my resistance.
I confiscated a note one day as it passed student to student in Freshman Baritone Chorale. Despite the professional-sounding course title, this 80-voice group tended toward unruly. At fourteen or fifteen years of age, the boys weighed between 90 and 250 pounds, measured from 4’5” to 6’6”, smelled of underarm stink and too much Axe, and acted between outrageous and immature. As I snatched the note, the offender flushed deep crimson from hairline to fingertips. I read their new name for me, printed in all caps: TILF.
My everyday name was Mrs. J, muddled by lazy mouths into Ms. J or Miss J. Then, the school hired my daughter, Elizabeth Jorgensen, to teach English. We shared some of the same students, and that forced kids to be more precise in pronouncing honorifics.
An alto stopped me after class one day. “Mrs. J!” she said, “your daughter, Miss J…or Ms. J…is my favorite teacher!”
Elizabeth used the confusion to teach grammar. I noted students’ faces when they realized Mrs. J was also Mom.
My childhood nickname was Nanny-Poo. Bestowed by my brother. It wasn’t snappy like his—Smirk. Or funny and clever like my boyfriend’s—Josephinistine. But it seemed to be a term of endearment, so I answered when he used it.
My ancestors’ names are Simon, Smirl, Johnson, Newman, Hudson, Moh. These surnames and family lore led me to believe I was British and German, Episcopalian and Catholic. In grade school, kids parsed out heritage in percent. “Mine,” I said, “is fifty-percent English, a quarter German, a quarter Luxembourg.”
It would be decades before genetic testing made me a liar.
The big reveal packed two surprises.
First, I’m 8.1% Scandinavian. Not astonishing since I assumed European heritage.
Second, I’m 9.1% Ashkenazi Jewish. In the blink of a computer, what I called myself changed.
Records show only a small number of Americans have been tested for ancestry, but a majority say they are interested. I am too. But I haven’t pursued details—has anything really shifted? Does a label change who I am? Or is it simply a reflection of who I am?
I no longer interact with clever teenagers who invent epithets, endearments, and appellations. I’m not Nancy Pants, but still a rebel. I’m not part of the J Crew Band, but still a musician. I’m not Nanny-Poo, but still my brother’s favorite sister. Now I’m just Nanc, Mom, or Grandma Nancy. Fine with me.
Your Signature: Nancy Jorgensen
Nancy Jorgensen is a Wisconsin writer, educator, and musician. Her most recent book is a middle-grade sports biography, Gwen Jorgensen: USA’s First Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete (Meyer & Meyer). Her essays appear in Huffington Post, Ms. Magazine, The Offing, River Teeth, Wisconsin Public Radio, and elsewhere. Find out more at NancyJorgensen.weebly.com
