For the past four years, I have been known exclusively as Lenny to my friends at college. I have been asked for the story of why many times (Lenny is not close to Brian or my last name). My usual response is to deflect the question and tell them it's "just a long story." If I am pushed
, I will explain that it has to do with, "A trip to China, my youth pastor, and stealing secret Chinese documents." But that's as interesting as the story gets.
A number of people in my hometown call me Lenny, three of them were on that trip with me to China after my Freshmen year of high school. The traveling part of the trip started out downright horrible. We missed our flight the first time because we were about thirty seconds past the deadline to get on the plane and the clerk at the desk said no. She agreed to book us flights for the next day, but instead of booking our flights all the way through she only got us as far as LA and then we were stuck there.
We wound up spending an entire night sleeping on airport benches by the door (hoping we wouldn't get mugged or robbed or kicked out of the airport). We all got less than two hours of sleep in about a 36 hour time period. When we finally got it worked out so that we could fly to China, we were dead tired, sitting in a airport lounge as loopy as a church group can be.
That was when the front desk started calling for, "Leonard Violente to the front desk. Leonard Violente to the front desk." My Pastor turned to me and joked, "Brian, isn't that your secret spy name? Better go see what they need." Being exhausted, "Oh yeah, I'm a spy."
It didn't come up again until we were in China flying to Beijing. The plane was taking off, we were surrounded by Chinese people but in China most people speak some English. My youth pastor leaned over and said, "Leonard Violente, did you get those secret Chinese documents?" I had visions of getting grabbed by the Chinese government and asked, "Who is Leonard Violente? Where is he?" in a dark room with an overhead light that was swinging back and forth.
But it stuck. It slowly spread in my home town, but then I got to college and introduced myself as Lenny on my freshmen floor and to some classmates. My first year at college I had a number of people tell me that they had walked around looking for where "Lenny"lived. I had other people tell me they couldn't find me on Facebook, and when I would add them they couldn't figure out who "Brian" was. A lot of people at college say they cannot think of me as anything other than Lenny.
So, if you've been wondering, there's the full story.
, I will explain that it has to do with, "A trip to China, my youth pastor, and stealing secret Chinese documents." But that's as interesting as the story gets.
A number of people in my hometown call me Lenny, three of them were on that trip with me to China after my Freshmen year of high school. The traveling part of the trip started out downright horrible. We missed our flight the first time because we were about thirty seconds past the deadline to get on the plane and the clerk at the desk said no. She agreed to book us flights for the next day, but instead of booking our flights all the way through she only got us as far as LA and then we were stuck there.
We wound up spending an entire night sleeping on airport benches by the door (hoping we wouldn't get mugged or robbed or kicked out of the airport). We all got less than two hours of sleep in about a 36 hour time period. When we finally got it worked out so that we could fly to China, we were dead tired, sitting in a airport lounge as loopy as a church group can be.
That was when the front desk started calling for, "Leonard Violente to the front desk. Leonard Violente to the front desk." My Pastor turned to me and joked, "Brian, isn't that your secret spy name? Better go see what they need." Being exhausted, "Oh yeah, I'm a spy."
It didn't come up again until we were in China flying to Beijing. The plane was taking off, we were surrounded by Chinese people but in China most people speak some English. My youth pastor leaned over and said, "Leonard Violente, did you get those secret Chinese documents?" I had visions of getting grabbed by the Chinese government and asked, "Who is Leonard Violente? Where is he?" in a dark room with an overhead light that was swinging back and forth.
But it stuck. It slowly spread in my home town, but then I got to college and introduced myself as Lenny on my freshmen floor and to some classmates. My first year at college I had a number of people tell me that they had walked around looking for where "Lenny"lived. I had other people tell me they couldn't find me on Facebook, and when I would add them they couldn't figure out who "Brian" was. A lot of people at college say they cannot think of me as anything other than Lenny.
So, if you've been wondering, there's the full story.
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