The Origins of a Name: Mitchell

The name Mitchell has absolutely no significance and the fact that my childhood best friend’s last name is Mitchell had no bearing upon the name of my son whatsoever. I only agreed to it because Mommy liked the name. Completely coincidental.

Daddy first met John Mitchell in 7th grade and thought he was goofy. As it turns out, the feeling was mutual so, on top of being goofy, he was a poor judge of character.

It was the next year, when we were both 13 that I was asked to be his shepherd when he joined our church. After spending a little time with him, I realized that my initial judgment of him was incorrect and he came to the realization that he really was a poor judge of character.

Somehow, the country-music-loving country boy and the heavy-metal-loving, wannabe city kid struck up a friendship that, 24 years later, has not waivered.

He introduced me to hunting, diving, airboats, skiing, knee-boarding, frogging and drifting a bedless truck. He taught me how to drive a bulldozer and tractor. I introduced him to beer.

There may be other things I introduced him to but they escape me right now.

We flipped airboats in the middle of the Everglades. We ran another friend into a strand of mangrove tress the first time he got on a slalom ski. We did driver changes in his truck on dark nights at 40 miles an hour (climb out the passenger window, cross the bed of the truck, climb into the drivers window). We took girls out to the ‘glades for campfires and built the fire on top of a box of live .22 shells. And although there are many more (mis)adventures, I’ll save those for later. Not our finest moments.

We survived high school, early adulthood and Hurricane Andrew together. We stood at each other’s weddings. We cried together and prayed together (see the airboat flipping incident above). We’ve provided therapy for each other by just listening. Most importantly, we’ve laughed together for almost a quarter of a century.

He’s a good guy and would indeed be a good person to be named after. But Mitchell Cain is not named after John Mitchell. Absolutely not. DEFINITELY not. I promise.