The story goes like this:

My father really wanted a "Junior" to carry on his name. My mother was not exactly thrilled. In fact, she refused for their first son, Thomas Murry. My parents then proceeded to have two daughters (Mary Deborah Lynn and Beth Elaine), so there was no issue. When I came along, she gave in, but absolutely refused to raise me as "Junior" or "little-Sherwood" (thanks mom!), so I was raised by the name "Clay". It just kinda feels right. (Shown below with my baby brother David Paul.)

A story I remember from my first day at school:

On the first day the teacher starts by calling roll, asking each of the students to raise their hand when she calls their name. When she gets to "Sherwood Randall" I excitedly look around, thinking "Neat! Someone else with the same last name." After reading the entire roll call, the teacher asks if there are any children in class that she hasn't called. Of course, I raise my hand.

"Well, what's your name?" she asks.

"Clay." I respond.

After double-checking her list she took me to the office. The folks in the office were also pretty confused for a while. Finally, they figure it out who I must be, so I arrived home from my first day I had a note for my parents. The office folks had explained that they had had my name wrong in the records, but they had now fixed the records to show "Clay Sherwood Randall" as my name. My mother took me to school the second day to get it straight.

You know, of course, that the first day of school in each successive year, I had to explain to every teacher that while my first name was Sherwood, I went by Clay. This worked out fine until the fourth grade...

...when I had a home room teacher who was absolutely facinated by the fact that I had "three first names, and three last names". She spent the entire year alternately calling my by Clay, Sherwood, Woody, Randall, or Randy as the mood struck her. (She was more realistic than I. Since that time, I find myself addressed with my three names in apparently random order on mailing lists.)

In high school, I started using the signature "S. Clay Randall, II". I was informed repeatedly by teachers that it was not an acceptable form. Luckily, all I had to do was to point out that the superintendent of schools was listed as S. William something-or-other, and I was allowed to use the name I chose. At the time, I used the "II" (the second) because I just didn't like "Junior". It was pointed out to me that "junior" was correct for men named after their father, and "the second" was used for men named after someone other than their father. So I changed back to Jr. to show respect for my father.

Back to About Clay.