As I write this at almost age 75 I recognize that while my own nickname is not really a secret, few of my current associates are privy to it nor how it came to be. Since 1969 I have been known as “The Buzzard” or just “Buzzard”.
So how? Back then I went on a seven week tour of Israel with the National Federation of Temple Youth, aka “NIFTY”. I had just graduated Marshall high school and was likely the senior student though without much maturity. We had a Rabbi and a Student Rabbi as leaders. One girl from New York took it upon herself to grant everyone on the tour a nickname, though not particularly imaginative assignments. E.g. the rabbi smoked a pipe so he was dubbed “Pipe”. Apparently she caught me taking a photograph of an Egyptian Buzzard (barely visible way up in the sky) and dubbed me “Buzzard”.
As I was competing with Miriam Brooks[1] to be the grossest kid on the bus the name stuck. My next adventure was to be a freshman at Michigan State University where I would be lodged in East Shaw Hall. Many of my high school buddies who were a year ahead of me lived there so I devised a plan to cement my new monicker. I told Gilbert Sherman my new nickname and swore him to never tell anyone. Of course, I knew from the start Sherman would pretty much tell everyone. That was the plan and it worked. By the time I returned to Shaw Hall as a senior (let them do the cooking) I was listed on the directory board twice. Once as Robert Reizner, but also as The Buzzard since by then few knew my actual name. During that freshman year I also had my first set of business cards printed with my dorm address and phone. Why? Well, if you met someone (particularly a cute someone) and gave them a card, say to compare class notes, a biz card often would stay in their purse or wallet for years. (Not so much now).
So, I AM the Buzzard. It is lettered on my mini-van. Its in Hebrew on my home office door. In fact, I just formed an LLC to flip a house and named the company “Buetonis, LLC” which is Latin for “Buzzard’s LLC”.
As an aside, I was surprised to learn that I had another nickname, “The Shark”. I was informed of this by my buddy and occasional rally navigator, Jon Svoboda, aka “Dog Man” as his side hustle is Ann Arbor Doggy Day Care. I told him I was Buzzard, but he explained that his late father, Larry, referred to me as the Shark simply because I am a lawyer. Possibly a better reason than just taking a photo. Accordingly, my Lincoln Continental has tasteful lettering on the tail “El Tiburon” or Spanish for The Shark. (Well, it IS a long grey silently moving beast with a top dorsal fin).
