Approaching Gay's only traffic light.
Intersection of Gay-Concord Road and GA Highway 85
Meriwether County
Georgia abounds in places with unusual names. Beside the abovementioned Gay and Social Circle, there are Flowery Branch and Dewy Rose, Ninety Six, Experiment, Court Ground, Ball Ground (two of them), Philomath (lover of mathematics, perhaps?), Talking Rock, Snake Nation, Hard Cash, Boozeville, Whistleville, Hub Junction, Loco, Shake Rag, Snapfinger, Trickum and Po Biddy Cross-roads. The names roll off the tongue like poetry.
If you’re a cad from Cad in Fannin County you can find a Broad in Wilkes County or a Hooker in Dade County.
We have lots of logs: Pine Log, Gumlog, Cherry Log and even Ivylog.
Pickens County has a Ludville. Are the folks who live there Luddites?
We also have Amity, Benevolence, and Temperance, which must surely lead to Tranquility.
And perhaps the most beautiful and evocative name of all, Rising Fawn.
Hopeulikit. (That’s in Bulloch County.)
The second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia is almost ready to ship. Watch this space for ordering instructions.
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Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
I had relatives in the town of Gayside, Newfoundland when I was young. I never thought anything of it except that it meant 'a happy place on one side of Birchy Bay'. But at some point, 'gay' lost its original meaning and came to be associated almost exclusively with homosexuality. When I was at university, the people of Gayside decided they needed to change the name of the town. The mayor was interviewed and said, without thinking, "When you tell people you're from Gayside, they looks at ya right queer." To the great amusement of everyone in Newfoundland watching the news that evening. Anyway, they had a contest to choose a new name and the winner was, get ready for it, 'Baytona'. You know, like 'Daytona', but 'bay' because it's in Birchy Bay. Awful. I still call the town Gayside because it's a nice name and Baytona is an abomination.
ReplyDeleteI despise the prostitution of the English language, Marcus. I never use that term for homosexuals. Actually, the mayor had it right.
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