Here’s an example: at the beginning of the fifties, the radio program Truth or Consequences was one of the most popular in the United States. One day, the host, Ralph Edwards, announced that the program would be broadcast from the first town that agreed to change its name to Truth or Consequences. The town of Hot Springs, New Mexico (so called because of the many thermal springs in the surrounding area), took up the challenge and is today called Truth or Consequences. As promised, Mr. Edwards and his team moved in and set up shop there. This story, told in a 1997 film, must have inspired the smartasses at Half.com, a virtual garage-sale site. In 2000, they managed to convince the municipal council of Halfway, a small Oregon village of 345 residents, to change its name to Half.com—all in return for a few trinkets (twenty-odd computers for the local primary school, a free website, etc.). “We were talking about how to get the company on the map, and we said: “Why don’t we get on the map. Literally,” declared the site’s founder, Josh Kopelman, proud of the stunt.
When the town of Climax, Minnesota, was established in 1896, it was, without any ulterior motive, given the name of its main employer, a chewing-tobacco manufacturer. Nobody could have predicted that the word climax would one day become synonymous with orgasm in everyday language. Once the harm had been done, the only option for the town’s 243 inhabitants was to pretend nothing was up, which didn’t always work out too well. Take, for example, that day in 2004 when the high school principal sent a student home for contravening, according to her, the school’s dress code by wearing a T-shirt printed with a message with sexual connotations. She didn’t know that the phrase in question was, quite simply, the town’s new slogan (“Climax, more than just a feeling!”), which had come out on top in a local contest. Among the finalists, other suggestions included “No end to Climax” and “Bring a friend to Climax.”
In Arizona there’s a place called Why. Why? Well, to start off with, the town was known by the name Y because routes 85 and 86 joined up there, making a Y shape. However, because Arizona law stipulates that town names must have a minimum of three letters, the town councillors were requested to comply without delay. After some discussion, they opted for Why, which of course sounds the same as the letter Y. Let’s just point out for the record that the route of these two roads has been changed, and the junction today looks like a T.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, most of what is today the state of Michigan was inhabited by Indians from the Potawatomi tribe. Toward the end of the 1830s, the first white settlers arrived, and by 1840 they were sufficiently numerous to justify constructing a school, the area around which quickly became built up. One George Reeves, owner of both the general store and a distillery, was considered the founder of this town, so it was to him that the authorities went to ask for an official place name. “You can name it Hell, for all I care,” came the response. On October 13, 1841, the town was officially named Hell.
Chicken, Alaska, started out as a mining camp that, for its first century of existence, had no official name and was none the worse for it. When they built a post office there in 1902, the US Postal Service informed the population (thirty-seven people spread over six households, according to the last census), that their tiny backwater would have to be christened in order for mail to be delivered there. As there were a lot of ptarmigans in the area, they decided to call the place Ptarmigan. However, at the time of completing the incorporation request, nobody could agree on the spelling of the word. In desperation, the mayor (or whoever it was) asked if anyone could suggest a different bird name. “Chicken!” was the first suggestion heard, and as everyone was in a rush to get the chore over with and go home, Chicken it was.
In the “It would have been better not to know” category, who could not feel slightly disappointed upon learning that the town of Boring, Oregon, is so named simply because it was founded by one W. H. Boring? That You Bet, California, was christened in honour of the favourite expression of the guy who owned the saloon back then? That Uncertain, Texas, takes its name from the fact that when Texas was an independent state, the residents were for a period of time uncertain of their citizenship, the border between the United States and the Republic of Texas being much disputed? Or that Ninety Six, South Carolina, was so named for the simple reason that it was situated ninety-six miles from the important city of Keowee?
This next one is the best: in 1869 the inhabitants of a small Texas colony decided to incorporate and demanded a post office from the US Postal Service. Unfortunately, the name they’d chosen for their town was rejected. (We don’t know what this name was, nor the reasons for its rejection.) The councillors of the future Nameless, somewhat irritated, nevertheless yielded to the decision and submitted another name, which was also rejected. This was a little harder to swallow, but they didn’t let it get them down. They brainstormed once more and submitted a third name, which, just like the first two, failed to please the post-office bureaucrats. This circus was repeated no less than six times. After the sixth rejection, the good colonists jokingly returned the form with the following inscription: “Let the post office be nameless and damned!” They were taken at their word, and in 1880 the town was registered with the name of Nameless. What I want to know is, what were the six rejected names? What could merit a no when they said yes to Coupon, Elephant, Unicorn, Comfort, Finger, Frog Jump, Defeated, Double Trouble, Good Intent, Loveladies, Perfection, Purchase, Burnt Chimney Corner, Duck, Elf, Hairtown, Lower Pig Pen, Upper Pig Pen, Meat Camp, Othello, Poor Town, Pope Crossing, Spies, Brilliant, Coolville, Dull, Liars Corner, Loveland, Pee Pee, America, Box, Cement, Chance, Frogville, Okay, Pink, Poop Creek, Remote, Sweet Home, Dynamite, Index, Triangle, Zaza, Domestic, New Discovery, Zulu, Ginseng, Hell for Certain, Hippo, King Arthur’s Court, Satan’s Kingdom, Krypton, Lovely, Miracle, Normal, and Ordinary?
Ò...3...Ò
The Most Beautiful Girl in Rouyn-Noranda
Being armchair tourists suited us down to the ground. We used to say that it would be cool to actually go somewhere, to feel the Pimlico breeze on our skin, to go shopping in downtown Happyland, to make friends in Dirty Butter Creek, but we both knew it was all just hot air, and we were always careful to add “whenever we can make it work” or “when we’ve got the cash.” Another way of saying never. And if we ever happened to come up with a question that was outside Google’s rather vast field of competence, such as “I wonder what the most beautiful girl in Rouyn-Noranda is called,” we pondered it for a few moments before dismissing the idea, saying, “Oh well, too bad we’ll never know.” One day (I think we were farting around in Brazil, Indiana), I can’t really remember what we were talking about, but I said, “We should totally go there,” and I was astonished by the conviction in my own voice. Jude could have neutralized it by kidding around, like he does every time it looks like I might be getting serious, but instead he replied in the same tone. Yeah, we should totally go there. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second, then we moved on to talk about something else, but nonetheless we knew we’d just taken a serious decision.
Here, the reader might be tempted to say, “Hold your horses, Ben-Hur! Don’t you think it’s overstating the case to call a vague travel plan a serious decision?” To which I reply that if you knew us a bit better, dear reader, you’d know that from our point of view a decision is by definition serious, that decisions are something we avoid like the plague. By the time I’ve decided which pair of socks to put on and what to spread on my toast, I’ve pretty much reached my quota of decisions for the day. You should also know that we’re the kind of people to make a mountain out of a molehill. We don’t try to hide it. Most of the time, we don’t even need the molehill. We’ve never accomplished anything, never been anywhere, and the smallest change in our routine pushes us to the brink of despair. What you, dear reader, might call an “annoying setback,” a “little glitch,” a “minor irritation,” or “last-minute change,” we would call the apocalypse. We’re not going to change; it’s
too late, given our ages, and it’ll probably get worse. But all the same we’ll go to Bird-in-Hand; of that I can assure you. (Bird-in-Hand is in Pennsylvania, but let’s not put the cart before the horse.)
From the moment we knew we’d be going on a trip, we started confining ourselves to the Americas. Now that the whole point of our virtual wanderings was to find our ideal destination, now that we were no longer content just to rove randomly around, we no longer saw the point of getting all the info about Rue du Grand-Puits in Saint-Yrieix-sur-Charent (in the Angoulême suburbs), or about Shanghai’s Zhujiang Gardens. We had to be realistic: we knew full well we’d never dare put an ocean between ourselves and home. If you found yourself in a bind in Lowell, for example, you could always hitchhike, steal a bike, or at worst walk. Terry Fox crossed Canada on foot—we’re no crazier than him. On the other hand, if the sticky situation cropped up in Chepek (Turkmenistan) or some part of Aden (Yemen), what would you do? You’d curl up in a ball in the corner and cry while you waited to die. The United States offers the best change-of-scene-to-safety ratio. And on that note, I’m going to start a new chapter to explain just how we came to choose Bird-in-Hand.
Ò...4...Ò
Author Introduction
(Because It’s Important to Do Things Properly)
As the chapter title indicates, I’ve changed my mind: I’m not going to tell you about Bird-in-Hand right away. Just above, I said, “If you knew us a bit better, dear reader, blah blah blah…,” which made me realize we’ve gotten twenty or so pages in and I have yet to say anything about myself. I have no desire to be well-known, but it seems to me that the reader, who has (or so I hope) paid good money for this book, has the right to know who they’re dealing with.
Mr. Marc Fisher, in his indispensable work Advice to a Young Writer, recommends introducing the characters bit by bit as the narrative progresses. (“Aerate the information,” as he so nicely puts it.) Reveal their motivation and personality through dialogue or, better still, by making them act. Possessing neither the craft nor the master’s fiendish talent, I’ll make do with presenting everything in one go. After that, we’ll be done with this chore and we can get into the meat of the subject. All right, let’s get on with it. My name’s Tess, I’m thirty-two, and I live in Grand-Mère with Jude, whom I will let introduce himself when it’s his turn to write. Now I have to tell you what I do for a living. I work at Subway (just across from Petro-Canada, you know the one). I make subs according to customers’ wishes, I ask them if it’s for here or to go, whether it’s just the sub or a combo. If the latter, I ask them if they want a cookie or chips. After that, I take their payment. When there aren’t any customers, I fill the little ingredient containers, I cut tomatoes or cucumbers, I wipe down tables with a rag, that sort of thing. It’s not overly taxing, but it’s not something you’d do for fun. Now what? What do you talk about when you’ve told someone your name, age, place of residence, and profession? (Take the lack of quotation marks around that last word as a bit of black humour.) I don’t know. Any questions? Hmmm… Let’s see, why don’t we try this another way. Give me a couple of minutes and I should be able to track down an online personality test, which I will fill in before your very eyes.
Aha! This one seems good: “Help Your Friends Get to Know You Better in Fifty Questions.” For the sake of the test, we’ll pretend you’re my friend, which will be weird. Most of the questions are a bit dumb, so I’ll spare you them. But the answers should help you figure out who I am.
Help Your Friends Get to Know You Better
(questionnaire found at www.sedecouvrir.fr, completed by Tess for the reader’s edification)
22:06
Tess
32
I don’t know exactly.
Somewhere around five foot four.
Brown
Brown
Aquarius
Grand-Mère
One sister
No
Yes, Sébastien Daoust (according to him)
Nothing at all
Texas Chain Saw Massacre
In Search of Lost Time
“I Think We’re Alone Now”
A Haunting
Quiet
Disagreeable
No
A naked girl
Country
Winter
Exactly where I am now
Go to Bird-in-Hand
Jude
No
I’d choose the dead one
A photo of Virginia Woolf
The floor
Sushi
I don’t think I have one
No
In Bird-in-Hand
I don’t give a shit
Nobody
“You know what?”
The doorbell ringing
To the neighbour just now,
but that doesn’t really count
No
No
Rasputin
Barbed wire around my arm or a tramp stamp on the small of my back, just like everyone else
None
I’ve never voted
Nothing really
Boil water for coffee
Take out my contacts
Never, that only happens to other people
Not excessively
22:31
There, now we’re bosom buddies. Let’s get on with the serious stuff.
Ò...5...Ò
Bird-In-Hand
If you believe the people at Google Maps (and personally I find them infallible), it takes exactly nine hours and forty-seven minutes to get to Bird-in-Hand by car. Of course, they aren’t taking into account pee breaks, nor the fact that you might want to stop for a snack in Albany, but since they imagine that you’ll stick rigidly to the speed limit, the latter compensates for the former.
Leaving our house (just next to Laflèche College, to give you an idea), you take Sixth to the end and then continue on Beech Street, which turns into Boulevard Saint-Sacrement and then, later on, Champlain Avenue. Why didn’t they just call it Beech Street all the way along? Good question. Maybe because there aren’t any beeches along part of the route, or perhaps they were loath to give Champlain an entire street, given that he never set foot in Shawinigan. Go figure. Anyway, you turn right at the top of Trudel and follow Highway 55 to the Trois-Rivières exit. You take said highway (but don’t forget to give it back! Lol!) and get off it after nearly thirty kilometres to take Highway 40 toward Montreal. In the outskirts of the metropolis, follow the signs for the Louis-Hippolyte-LaFontaine Bridge–Tunnel. Before going in, you’ll see a traffic sign forbidding big black squares: make sure you haven’t got a big black square on your car. (Anyone get the joke?) Once out of the tunnel, take Highway 20 south, which soon becomes the 132, before changing once more and becoming Highway 15, if I’ve understood correctly. The Google directions are a bit confusing for this part of the route, but it’s clearer when you see it on the map. Basically, drive south and, before you know it, you’ll hit the American border. There, the customs officer will ask suspiciously why you’ve come to the States.
“We’re going to Bird-in-Hand, sir!”
“Oh! Welcome then.”
This formality dealt with, you carry on south on Highway 15, which by the way is no longer called that but now has the catchier name of Adirondack Northway/Interstate 87 S. Enjoy the countryside for 280 kilometres, then take 1W toward New York/Buffalo. It’s around here that the Albany snack stop I mentioned comes in. If you aren’t hungry I won’t force you, but just so you know, you’ve been driving for almost five hours; it would do you good to stretch your legs. Do you like oysters? If so, get yourself to Jack’s Oyster House (42–44 State Street, Albany, NY 12207), which seems to have an excellent reputation in the area. Sure, it’s a bit f
ancy, but for your first meal abroad surely you can indulge in a little treat. Besides, they sell other things besides oysters. The establishment is run by a “French Certified MasterChef” by the name of Luc Pasquier, who makes just about everything: Massachusetts cod in granola crumble on a bed of Meyer lemon emulsion, or classic chicken schnitzel, or duck à l’orange braised with candied zest, etc.
Right, now you’re full. Let’s jump back in the car. Interstate 287 S will take you into New Jersey, but you’ll skip straight through it (and with good reason: New Jersey is basically the American Mississauga). After just three-quarters of an hour, take exit 21B onto Interstate 78, and there you are in Pennsylvania, the cradle of American democracy. You’ll feel beat (especially if you opted for a glass or two of Riesling to wash the oysters down), but you need to stay alert because it gets a bit confusing at this point, Bird-in-Hand being located some distance from the main highways. Short version: you’ll go down a few secondary roads and after an hour of tootling around you’ll get to the outskirts of Lancaster, the biggest town between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh (Lancaster’s 500,000 inhabitants make it the hundred-and-first-biggest city in the country, no less…). After Lancaster, drive east on Old Philadelphia Pike (also called, more prosaically, Road 340) for just half an hour and, voilà, there you are! Welcome to Bird-in-Hand! When you see the sign with its bird in a hand, you exclaim to your passenger, “Here we are at last!”
“Finally! I don’t care what anyone says, nine hours and forty-seven minutes in the car is hell on your butt.”
“Thank goodness we stopped at Albany for that snack.”
“Totally!”
If you don’t have a passenger, you can say all that in your head. Next, you start looking for somewhere to stay. The first place you spot, on your right, the Bird-in-Hand Family Inn, would do perfectly well, but you could also head down to the Amish Country Motel, the Mill Stream Country Inn, or even the Travelers Rest Motel. The best thing about all this is that you won’t upset anybody by choosing one over the other since they all belong to the Smucker family, the local big shots. Be that as it may, I nonetheless recommend the Bird-in-Hand Family Inn, because it’s located right next to the Bird-in-Hand Family Restaurant & Smorgasbord, also owned by the Smuckers, where they serve traditional Lancaster County meals. Which means what? I must confess I don’t entirely know what they mean by that. On the photo decorating the menu (on the town’s website: www.bird-in-hand.com), you can see a big ham, a stuffed turkey, peas, mashed potatoes, pies, pastries, and a basket of fried things, all under the rapturous eyes of a little redheaded girl (a little Smucker?) biting into a corncob. It looks delicious, but I wouldn’t like to see the arteries of someone who ate that every day. However, once is not a habit, and Albany’s oysters were a long way back, so go ahead, stuff your face at the smorgasbord (which appears to be the Amish way of saying all-you-can-eat). Next: a shower and a good night’s sleep before setting off to explore Bird-in-Hand.
Document 1 Page 2