WHAT'S IN A NAME?

I missed blogging yesterday because a friend came to visit with two of the sweetest, cutest
young daughters you'd ever want to meet. She is going to send me some pictures.
Cousin Bob visited on Friday and we got to yapping and I never did take a picture of handsome Bob.
Then, to make things difficult, I'm still relearning how to post on this blog. For instance, I haven't figured how to look at the previous blog to see where I left off on all those funny names.
 I typed a very long poem from 1870 three days ago and saved it. I know not how to retrieve it. There must be a word for someone like me. Dimwit comes to mind but  I expect I'm technically challenged.

Today, let me start with something not in print. Mining towns have interesting names.  In Sutter Creek there was a place called Pig Turd Alley. I wish I'd taken a picture of it all those years ago.  But the street sign was stolen so often they finally had to rename it something wimpy.
 Funck Road on Highway 4 near Farmington, named for the Funck family who settled there years ago. You can imagine how many times that sign had the n painted out. I've forgotten the wimpy new name.
We still have Beer Can Corner in Sonora, about which I know nothing about how it got named.  I used to live on Hanging Tree Rd. I once got someone else's package who lived on Hang Tree Rd. in Mokelumne Hill. Remnants of cowboy justice during and after the gold rush days. My Exchange student from Indonesia, with college age children of her own, just admitted to me in an email that when she first saw the name of our street in a letter I wrote to welcome her to America, that she was afraid to come because of the name of the road. What a hoot.

Rereading a scrap book I put together about a trip my husband and I made to Kansas City and through the State of Missouri, I couldn't help but notice the interesting town names. Admire, Kansas was the only one I wrote down for that State, but Missouri had some interesting gems. Peculiar, Cool, Tickridge, Deepwater, Truman Lake, Humansville, Ozark, and Cahoot. The more interesting thing about Missouri was passing by President Truman's house. Bess Truman was calmly working in her garden and we said hello to her.  She smiled and said, "Good Morning".  One of her neighbor's told us that she didn't like the huge fence surrounding the property, but it protected her from overzealous tourists. The Truman's refused to have a cadre of Secret Service Men in constant attention guarding their place. (That saved the U.S. Government a lot of money.) They knew their neighbors were decent people and that most people are likewise. Different times, to be sure.

I had a friend who named their pet Rabbit, Hop-a-long Cassidy.   Pet names are another whole elephant.