So what’s up with the name Dakota Mick? Well, obviously my mother didn’t give me that name. That would have been stupid, especially considering I was born in Nebraska.
Anyways, when my wife finally got tired of South Dakota she drug me over here to Ireland back in 2001. Her being just to damn homesick. We ended up renting a little cottage outside of a small village not to far from Kinsale in County Cork. I made it my business fairly quickly to investigate the quality of the cold beverages in the village Pub. Luckily for me it was up to scratch. Actually quite good.
After the locals got to know me, they decided that Michael, the name my momma did give me, just wasn’t good enough. “So how about Mick?” they suggested.
My response, “Well, to be honest, I usually go by Mike.”
“Ah ya, but you are in Ireland now…It has to be Mick.”
Well to be honest, I have been called a lot worse. So I agreed. Why not Mick…
“Well now, you can’t be Mick…Mick Murphy is Mick.”
“Well that’s fair enough, so how about we just call me Mike.”
But the locals insisted. “Your in Ireland now, so it has to be Mick. See we got Scottish Mick, we have English Mick, and we already have Mick the Yank…so you can’t be him…Where did you say you are from again?”
“South Dakota.”
And that is when the locals decided that Dakota Mick was my name. And once I got used to it I realised that as a name in Ireland it was really quite useful. The locals can explain away any strangeness they might perceive about me with. “Why sure, he is from the Dakotas, no wonder he is a bit different. And I also found that once the local had named you, that they seemed to take you in as one of their own. Which is nice.
Unfortunately, I no longer live in that village. But the name stayed with me. I like it. It labels me, kind of like a brand on my backside. Although, if I am ever in South Dakota I never use it. They would think I am some pretentious bastard.
The Muslim and The Redneck 