For most of us, the pleasure comes soon after some personal demon has overcome a lifetime refusal to read the obituary page. The lifting of such a refusal usually means increased confrontations with the notion of your own death, inasmuch as the obits bring news of death of so many persons your own age or younger. (Though some persons have been known to find great relish in such news, as if there were a huge prize for the Last One Standing.)

But certainly there are other compensations for obit-reading and not the least of these is the discovery of fabulous nicknames which have followed their owners all the way to the grave.

Take an example from early March of this year: George Joseph Lombas Sr. A 75-year-old retired Navy petty officer. Survived by his wife Geraldine, two sons and a daughter, eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Burial at Restlawn Park in Avondale. Also known as “Crab Man.”

Immediately, this individual is individualized among the dozen or so other names on this unhappy page. And somehow his life is made to seem richer, more fun somehow, that all those who have managed to die without a nickname. You start speculating. Did this guy maybe eat three and half dozen crabs one Bacchic night at Bruning’s? Or perhaps a crab he was pulling out of a net once bit him on the finger and, to make someone laugh, this guy bit the crab on the claw.

Nicknames that end in “Man” are always popular. In early January, there was Sammy L. “Monster Man” Brinson, a 37-year-old maintenance man for Eastover Country Club, who died of complications from a snake bite. Since he was survived by his wife Lucy and five sons, it is very likely he was not as monstrous as all that.

Less common are nicknames that culminate in the noun “Head,” but I have been able to come across a couple recently. The first was John “Pan Head” Lagrange Jr., who died of heart failure at the too-young age of 46 in late January. Mr. “Pan Head” had worked as a diesel mechanic for Shell Oil, so there was likely an occupational origin for his nickname.

But there are other names that defy easy solving. Like James D. “Tokenhead” Flanagan, a 65-year-old salesman for Rainbow Oldsmobile who died in mid-March and was buried in St. Bernard Memorial Gardens. Tokenhead?

Bestowal of a nickname can come at any age of course, but my guess is that most of them are conferred by your peers at a fairly early age. I always craved a nickname of my own, but actually only enjoyed one for part of the seventh grade. A few of my pals took to calling me “Spider” because I was tall and thin for my age. I liked it, but everyone else abandoned it before the end of the school year and since I am no longer either tall or thin, it is unlikely to be resurrected any time soon.

Of course, not a few people find spiders loathsome, so perhaps it was a good thing that such designation did not stick. Many more nicknames hint at associations that most people find more pleasant, or even sweet.

Like say 61-year-old John L. Bickham, a retired driver for Hunt’s Trucking Company who died last October and left six children and nine grandchildren behind. John’s “other” name, the one not on his birth certificate, was “Coke Machine.” How’s that for pleasant associations, especially on some midday in mid-August?

Then there was Clarence Ronald Reeb, who died last September at the age of 66. Clarence left behind a wife Lillian, five children, seven grandchildren and the lingeringly sweet nickname of “Honeybee.”

Doubtless men and women who live and die in other places have nicknames. But I have read many obit pages in newspapers in many other cities and have found nowhere near the frequency, variety and creativity of nicknames that you find around here.

Partly, this is because people in other places tend to drop their nicknames at key societal times, such as first marriages or first loan applications. Oftentimes, this cannot be done around here simply because not everyone knows that the actual first name of “Mullet” is “Wayne” and if the obit just says “Wayne” and not “Mullet” then hardly anyone would show up for the wake.

Yes, there are less nicknames these days than there once were. My guess is that (a) baby boomers and the self-esteem movement work hard to see that no child is trivialized by a nickname and (b) more and more, surviving family members are withholding nicknames from the obit writers, deciding it is a blow to the family dignity if Grandma goes to her grave with the appellation “White Rhino.”

But nicknames always make their owners sound friendly, accessible, people who must have been able to kid about themselves. And so I would like to salute the following dearly departed, who, although I knew them not, made me smile at least once: Robert “Kop Kop” Forcha, Eva “Bobo” Rubins, Dwight “Best Fisherman on the West Bank” DePriest, Robert “Eggplant” Burrows Jr., Lloyd “The Real Peanut Man” Wilson, Thelma “Boogie” Turgeau, Deborah “Pig” Robert, Beatrice “Midget” Riley, Charles “Rubber Leg” Reed, Wallace “Tutty” Breaux, Ulysses “Fat Man” Duncan.

Not to forget Donald “Big Kahuna” Popp, Althea “Poundcake” Powe, Douglas “Big Wheel” Kindrick, Wilfred “Will-Do” Beason, Somsri “The Energizer” McGraw, Harold “Dookie” Plaeger, Larry “Frog” Clouatre, Leo “Leo the Great” Gallagher, Thomas “The Fish Man” Foster, Lawrence “Mr. Wedding Cake” Aiavolasti, Alvin “Nookie” Guidry Jr., Gwendolyn “Brown Eyes” Alexander, Robert “Bounce” Brown and McGuffy “Hickey Bee” Haynes.

So start reading those obits now before all the good nicknames are gone from our newspapers. And don’t be surprised when, if you come across one with my name on it, not in parentheses, between the middle and the last name, there’s the word “Spider.”