Who Wants to Live on Butt Hole Road?
Am I the only person who does this?
For much of my life, I have spent swaths of time in the mountains. My mom grew up in Eastern Kentucky, and she would take us up there for up to a month each summer. I ran around the hills and hollows and sat on the porch at night with my Mamaw watching the fireflies light up the hill across the road. Shoes were an accessory I never cared much about. (Imagine that!) I loved pounding the dirt roads barefoot and embracing the lazy pace of life.
I guess I’ve translated that to my adult self. While I don’t think I could live in the mountains all the time, I do love to visit them. Same rules apply. I enjoy being outside, getting dirty, doing nothing. It makes me feel close to my Mamaw somehow.
What’s weird is this: mountain places have funny names. Or, at least, funny to me.
I can’t ride by a road sign loudly proclaiming that a dirt road leading off into the back beyond is called “Big Joe Gap” without wondering who Big Joe was. What was his story? Why did he only get a pockmarked dirt road in the middle of nowhere? How come he got a road at all?
Or, how about this one: Upper Pig Pen Road. And, it has a twin. You guessed it: Lower Pig Pen Road. Were there pig pens in both places, or just one? Were the upper pigs more high falutin’ than the lower pigs? Was the road really a statement about the cleanliness of the homes scattered along them? Was this where piggy people had to go to live, shamefully cast off from mountain society?
Still Road. Really? I thought the point was to hide them in the middle of nowhere. Why give people a marker to come find an outlaw still that’s supposed to be secret? I mean, people in my Mom’s neck of the woods used to shoot one another over these things. (Never fear. I’m not implying that any of them were related to her.)
And then there are the people names. I had an uncle named Rooster. Why? Did he strut like one? Ruthlessly impregnate helpless females all over the barn yard? Have a chicken neck affliction?
I can’t even bring myself to question why I have an ancestor named Crit Hinkle.
Of course, these issues don’t apply to Appalachian America. They’re worldwide, big and small. It’s just fun to imagine sometimes what the real stories behind places and people might be.
And, to be thankful that I don’t live on Butt Hole Road or Penistone in South Yorkshire, England. I’m sure I’m not alone in being grateful on that one.
I agree, it is so interesting to notice the strange and funny names of roads and places. They are everywhere, not just in the hills of Appalachia; we have some good ones around the greater Charleston area as well.
Most of the ones around our area are roads named for people, you can see Mabel and Lucille Road as well as any number of Porcher roads with various first names.
Of course, there is also Hell, SC that is always fun to think about the origins and what those folks were thinking when they named their town. If you want to learn more about Southern towns, google Bill Cosby “speakin Southern” and see a hilarious you tube video of when he was doing The Price is Right….your head will hurt from laughing.
When we drive thru W. Virginia on our way to Ohio each year, we see really good ones like Cabin Creek, which is where Jerry West grew up and got the name of Zeke from Cabin Creek.
Here are a few more funny towns in SC – Cuckold’s Creek, Ninety-six, North, Sugar Tit.
For more fun, go to Google and type in funny town names.
Lou, I’m from Anderson, and Due West is just down the road a piece from there–near Starr, and Iva. And as the lady said, North is south of Due West…I did a marketing / branding project for Erskine College which is in Due West and most of my colleagues found it entertaining to talk about going to Due West.
In SC we have an interesting share of strange place names like: Honea Path, Grey Court, Lugoff, Coward, Norway, Denmark, Silverstreet, Prosperity, Cowpens, Boiling Springs, Travelers Rest and many more…
I’ve always loved Due West. And Ninety-Six.
I forget all these funny South Carolina names. Thank you for reminding me, Lou.
And, Bill Cosby anything is always worth a look.
We live on Marion Street, though I don’t know if that’s named for General Francis Marion. Charles C. Pinckney of Revolutionary War fame initially owned the property upon which our house now sits, and Morris Street is named for his daughter, who inherited the land from him.
That’s funny! I’m still laughing at the Still Road one. Like Lou, I’ve noticed some strange ones around here, too. I remember once we were looking at a some land that we saw for sale and happened to notice that it was called Fault Line Road. I’m just guessing, but I don’t think this a selling feature.
Who would ever want to live on Fault Line Road? I’m with you. That’s no selling feature.
I hope you have a lovely new year!! It’s good to “see” you.
re the Fault Line Rd, when the lovely Miss Teresa and I lived in California, we bought a town home in Pleasanton (nice name) and aftre living there about a year, we were looking at some maps and found out that one of the main earthquake faults ran right through our back yard. Yikes…fortunately, during our 7 years there, we only felt two small tremblors; one felt like someone kicked the back of the chair I was sitting in and the other one just seemed like we were swaying while standing still. I’m hoping that we don’t see another Charleston quake until maybe 2096.
It is so funny to hear that you lived in Pleasanton, Lou. There used to be this awesome pizza place there that I’ve visited a couple of times.
And, I would’ve moved from the fault line in my backyard, too.
How about Buttermilk, Head o’ Greasy, Mousie, Hoopfalaurie, Bee Branch, Mud Lick, Vicie Fork, Hurricane, and many more I don’t have time to name. The hollars up home all had a story behind their name. I am from Boon’s Camp named for Daniel Boone because he was supposed to have camped in that spot and it is on Greasy Creek named that because he was supposed to have killed so many bears there that the creek became greasy. And Hoopfalaurie has another story that I won’t go into but my mom could tell all these stories. They were very entertaining.
Yeah, I knew I was forgetting a bunch of them. Thanks for putting them all up here.
For several years my work was with new home builders’s marketing. On a few occasions I helped name a few streets in some new sub-divisions. I’m here to tell you that there are a number of communities where the streets are named for the wives and daughters of the builders, as well as trees, different types of water features and shurbs.
I imagine that it was the same long ago…the place was associated with something that is no longer there…just like Charleston. I used to frequently give directions to things by saying, “on Calhoun where Sears used to be” which could have been said early in the 20th century as over where the Orphan House used to be.
Names tell stories and as Linda said, there are so many of them we could keep each other entertained for many hours. That’s what I love more than anything in life…is listening to people tell stories which is why I love reading your blog.
I guess the worst one I’ve heard is over in I’On. They decided to name a street “John Galt Street” or something. Ewwwwww. After reading “Atlas Shrugged,” I would never, ever want to live there.
Well, closer to home, there is always Cool Blow Street, which is a street name that goes back to at least 1852, so likely has little to do with the illicit activity that the name suggests.
Actually, my introduction to the unique character of South Carolina came in 1989 when I was on my epic motorcycle trip. Heading north on SC28 just past Abbeville, and there was the sign for Due West, with a prominent arrow pointing to the right, or pointing…due east!
Ah, yes. Cool Blow. My friend has now moved away from there, and I can no longer address her cards to Cool Blow Street. *Sigh.*
I had a great uncle named Fuzzy…never knew his real name. My mom had a brother everyone called Jimmy. His real name was Carl Paul….how do you get that? I worked with a girl in California whose name was Sunshine Flower…she asked everyone to call her Beth.
There’s Fancy Gap and Flat Top (Virginia and West Virginia), Wapakoneta, Ohio and Eureka, California….
I’m sure I could remember more, but my mind is wandering…Lou just got home!
Carl Paul? THAT is really funny. I would’ve gone with Fuzzy or Jimmy, too.