"It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature" or my mother, the late Grace Patrick Leslie. I was to be named "Dean" until my mother spilled the beans to my aunt, who was also pregnant, and when she delivered four weeks prior to my mother, they named their son "Dean." It raised the hair on the back of my Irish mother's neck.

This Patrick family conundrum came to mind recently when I learned there's a newly-named street in Manhattan, FL, "Dale Leslie Avenue." These Manhattan-ites would presumedly be amused to learn how I came within a cat's whisker of being "Dean Leslie," fore this historical footnote would not have happened.

I did panic upon reading in a grocery-store tabloid that an out-building, a tennis court, a swimming pool or even a pet rabbit that bears your name leaves you vulnerable to identity theft. Geez.! If someone stole my social security number off my federal Michigan bear trapping license application, they could disrupt my life plenty.

"Dale Leslie" showing pristine on a street sign is as close as I'll get to having my name in lights. And it makes for good cannon fodder when someone suspects my modest brilliance and notoriety is all show.

Some think Dale Leslie is all show but he perseveres. He has maintained his avocation of feature writing into retirement. Leslie is a born and bred townie and so are his two sons, Drew and Graham.