Nano Poblano Name Game Blog Hop

Yay! It’s my turn to comment on the most unusual name I’ve ever heard.   Thank you so much, Nerd in the Brain, for tagging me. In turn, I would like to tag Cheney at Blog Apocolypse.  Being in the hospitality biz, I know she’s heard some awesome names!

THE RULES FOR THE NAME GAME BLOG HOP:

1. Write a paragraph or two about somebody from an ordinary walk of life with an unordinary name. It can either be a true story about somebody you know with that name, or a fictional piece about somebody with a name you made up.
2. After you’re done posting your story, send me an email to markbialczak@gmail.com with your Blog Hop II, your blog name and either TRUE STORY or MADE IT UP in the subject line.
3. Pick another Nano Poblano team member from the home blog roll page and tag them on their About page. Try to spread the wealth around from Fish of Gold’s original blog hop to start, but duplication is OK as the month rolls along.
4. The writing cutoff is Nov. 28. By the end of Nov. 29, email to me at markbialczak@gmail.com a list with a guess of TRUE STORY or MADE UP for each post on the blog hop. Put Blog Hop II, Final Guesses in the subject line.
5. The Nano Poblano team member with the most correct answers wins a special prize, which I will mail to them. That means you will have to email me your address if you win.
6. Add your link to the chain of writers.
7. Have fun.

I’m from the South; Alabama to be precise and I can say with all confidence that nutty stuff “don’t get much deeper on the ground” than it gets around there. I grew up in a society where it’s perfectly normal to give your baby a first name that’s the last name of someone important (or rich) in your family. I went to school with a flock of dainty little girls with forenames like Thompson, Finley and Davis, and I’m pretty sure at some point between us my sister and I dated a Hamilton, a Jackson and a Tucker or two.

That said, I have heard some very unusual names in my life, but the craziest of all, I think, would be my great-grandparents’ neighbor, Mr. Opelika. The Opelika’s are an old, old Alabama family (the town of Opelika, near Auburn University, was named after them).

My Daddy used to tell me stories about when he was a little boy and would visit his Nanna and Papoo at their place in the country (the bizarre monikers Southerners give their grandparents being entirely different post). He and the other kids living up and down the dirt road would try to spy on Mr. Opelika, who had become grumpy and anti-social after Mrs. Opelika passed away.

From what I’ve heard, he was a pretty colorful ol’ coot.

He hated dogs, so instead he kept a flock of guinea hens in his front yard to warn him of strangers.  The hens screamed and honked at everything that moved and terrorized the little boys with their sharp beaks and vindictive natures.

Mr. Opelika was fond of firearms and had an old cap-and-ball pistol, which he would fire at midnight every New Year’s Eve, “to scare off the devil.”

He had a huge colony of bees and collected their honey, which he begrudgingly doled out to the surrounding families at Christmas time.

The absolute best thing about Mr. Opelika?

His first name was Balthazar.

No one called him Balthazar, of course; they called him Henry, which was his middle name.  Or in my Dad’s case, he was always to be called Mr. Opelika. Had he not been so grumpy and reclusive, it would have been “Mr. Henry,” since he was a neighbor; with that respectful familiarity Southern children once used to address adult friends of their family.

I think Balthazar Henry Opelika may be the most fabulous name I have ever heard.  Should I become a celebrity and travel incognito or should I one day turn to writing porn, that will be my alias.

Those peppers who have participated in the fun thus far:

Markbialczak
Silver Threading
The Chatter Blog
MeWhoAmI
Lindaghill
Lucy at the Excessive Gardener
DebraB at Debra Books
Mindful Digressions
Fish of Gold
Snoskred
Crawford’s Creative Corner
Love Marriage Worms
Chasing Destino
Nerd in the Brain

Drunk on Life