You are from where?
About a month ago, I took wife Judy on a ride through the Texas countryside. It was a cool, somewhat rainy day, and I had two objectives in mind. First, the spring flowers of the state were blooming everywhere, so it was a gorgeous way to spend the day. Also, I wanted her to experience the “Horny Toad Bar and Grill” in Cranfills Gap, a booming metropolis of a reported 280 folks (and cats and dogs, probably) around 85 miles southwest of Fort Worth.
My Christian Motorcyclists Association chapter had eaten at the grill a few weeks earlier when we had all taken our motorcycles for a nice ride. We loved the décor, the food and the name of the small restaurant — one of only two “active” businesses in the town, the other a gas station.
As my wife and I were enjoying a burger in this quaint establishment, I pondered the name of the town, wondering about its history and how it got named. Research reveals that this small burg was named after a Norwegian settler, George Eaton Cranfill, in 1851. Simple enough. Then, I mused, how did Holyoke get its name? Google and Wikipedia quickly revealed that my hometown’s name was derived from the much larger Holyoke, Massachusetts, its name based on Elizur Holyoke, a 17th century explorer. Bet you didn’t know that (or care), right?
I continued my pondering. Some names are just easy. Castle Rock, where some of my cousins reside, between Denver and Colorado Springs, obviously got its name from the huge rocky formation that hovers over the city. Jackson Hole, Wyoming, obviously comes from the fact that Ralph Jackson fell into a big hole there … OK, so I made that up — just seeing if you were paying attention.
As one can see, one could spend hours and hours researching interesting or intriguing names of places.
When we lived in Arkansas, we once visited Toad Suck — a town not far from Little Rock, near the center of the state. Toad Suck didn’t participate in any census, I discovered, but is estimated to have about 1,500 people brave enough to say they are from there. The history of the name “Toad Suck” is in dispute. Some believe that the name was created when idle rivermen would congregate at the local tavern where they would “suck on the bottle ‘til they swell up like toads.” Wow. Can you imagine graduating from Toad Suck High School and having to confess that on a resume?
Time (and energy and space) doesn’t allow me to go into the history of some of the strange names for places in America, but a few of those names are worth mentioning. There are actually sites on the internet that list weird or funny or strange towns in our country — I checked. No doubt, the derivation of each name would be something to investigate and, after you see the names of some of these places, I imagine telling folks where you live could raise some eyebrows.
I discovered that there is Bacon, Indiana, and Bee Lick, Kentucky. And there’s Buttermilk, Kansas, and Chicken, Alaska — for all of you food aficionados. Dinosaur, Colorado, is fairly explanatory, I suppose, as is Fleatown, Ohio. Living in Gripe, Arizona, is probably depressing, but if you are really bad, you can move to Hell, Michigan. Sadly, Hooker is not found in Nevada (near the famous Chicken Ranch, not far from Las Vegas) — it is in Oklahoma.
You could have been raised in Oatmeal, Texas, or perhaps Sandwich, Massachusetts, but living in Spuds, Florida, or Monkey’s Eyebrow, Kentucky, would have been as bad. Then there is Dog Walk, Kentucky, much better, I suppose, than calling Fart, Virginia, your home. Which would be worse — residing in Dull, Ohio, or calling Boring, Oregon, your home? Saying you are from Mosquitoville, Vermont, sounds horrid, but so does explaining that you are from Booger Hole, West Virginia. Ick.
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