Jackie Oh!

I know a Jacquie, a Jaci, a Jacki, and many Jackies of both genders, and I am writing today to say that I never met a (person whose name is one of those, however the spelling) that I didn't like a whole big lot!

One of my cousins married a really cool girl named Jackie, and what I liked about her was that, as a young married woman, she was still nice to a goofy kid of 13 or whatever I was.  No one likes a 13-year old boy, least of all a 13-year-old girl, but thanks, Jackie, for talking to me like I mattered.

My sister's longtime friend Jaci has been a friend of mine since forever, and she has cool kids and cool grandkids now, none of them named after her, but there's still time.  Jaci has been putting up with my bad jokes even longer than
Jacquie has.  Jacquie was in my class in high school, by which I mean she was there at the same time.  I'm sure she spent more time in the classrooms than I did, I who put the "true" in "truancy."  (And the "sent" in "absent," because a certain vice principal who shall remain nameless often sent me to the Thomas and Thompson Pharmacy with a dollar and his standard order:"Get me a pack of Kents and large coke, and get yourself something...")  Jacquie was one of those cool and pretty girls who nonetheless always had a kind word for goofs such as I. Jacki is a police dispatcher with whom I worked, a very nice person and a real professional. Jackie did the news while I was a DJ back in my radio days, and we're still in touch on Facebook.  She has moved 3,000 miles away and now lives in The Land That Time Forgot, because she has not aged a minute since we worked together, and that was when Disco was big, if you want to know the truth.

Martling

Famous Jackies? I got a million of 'em.  Jackie Robinson, the bravest man on a ball field.  Jackie Gleason, dubbed by Orson Welles "The Great One" and he never ever argued that point.  Jackie Chan from the movies, Jackie Earle Haley who played "Guerrero" on Human Target and Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, Jackie Coogan, who was Uncle Fester, and two more: Jackie Wilson, singer of "Reet Petite" and Jackie "The Jokeman" Martling, the man who fed Howard Stern gags for years and years, one of which became the last joke I ever told my father.

I'll have to tell you that joke someday. I think I've told all the Jackies.