Why Phred?

That’s an excellent question!

When I was 13, my family drove to southern California in our motorhome to pick up my older brother from his proselyting mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  While we were traveling home we got to hear all about the adventures that he and his mission companions had while serving in the California Ventura mission.  There was one story that stood out to this young and impressionable teenager.

My brothers’ missionary companion’s name was Brett.  The little children in their apartment complex would always ask what their names were.  They would always respond with Elder and their last name.  Well, that wasn’t good enough for the children.  After much prodding, my brothers’ companion told them his name was Brett.  Their response was “Fred – cool!”  No matter how hard they tried, my brothers’ companion was forever known as Fred to those children.  During this same time frame, my brother and his companion kept getting phone calls for a Mister Allred.

Sometimes, there becomes a perfect storm of events to create something so much more than the sum of the individual parts.  Both my brother and his companion were extreme practical jokers.  I have a friend who 10 years later served in the California Ventura mission and the missionaries were still talking about the antics of my brother and his companion.

It all started out quite innocently.  Fred Allred started to attend church meetings as a visitor.  Soon junk mail started to arrive at their apartment for Fred.  Free introductory Time-Life books and Danbury Mint collectibles started to come in the mail with Fred holding the bag for the bill (which was always canceled after the free stuff arrived and before the “buy 2 every month for the rest of your life” period kicked in).  Fred even went so far as to schedule a trip on P-Day (a non-proselyting rest day) to Disneyland (way outside of the mission boundaries – very bad juju if caught).  And, just like that, one week before the Disney trip the Elders were transferred and Fred faded into distant memory and was forgotten.  Well, not totally…

When I was 16 I was working in a Chinese restaurant with one of my friends.  We were both dishwashers and were always looking for ways to divert our brains from the repetitive nature of the job.  One day we were talking about the various nuances of the English language when our conversation turned to the F and PH sounds.  We came to the conclusion that if “phone” could start with a PH than so could many other items – phast, phriendly, phood & Phred.  When Phred came up, my mind leaped back to the story my brother told about his mission and Phredrick Gee Allred was born.

Phred has gotten around quite a bit in the last quarter of a century…  He’s attended many church meetings and trainings, made reservations at all sorts of restaurants, made numerous donations to non-profit organizations, and signed papers he has corrected as a classroom TA.  Heck, he’s even sent his name to the moon on a NASA probe.

So, in answer to the our question, “Why Phred?”  The short answer is, “Why not?”  I’m pretty confident that the randomness that Phred has been for all these years will fit in perfectly with the randomness that this blog will showcase!