What's in a Name?

       A few people have asked me why I call my blog Girl Hobo, and what does that mean? It began when I was a very young girl. All of my childhood friends wanted to be ballet dancers and astronauts when they grew up, but I wanted to be a hobo. I dreamed of stowing away on freight trains and traveling the world. One Halloween, I dressed up like a hobo, with a black hat, red nose, and a sooty overcoat. I didn't know back then that the life of a hobo was sad and lonely, at best, that hobos were hungry most of the time, and not well respected by the general population. It seemed like an exciting life for a dreamy, little girl growing up in a small agricultural town in New England. I read a lot of books about adventurous children, including "My Side of the Mountain," which at one point prompted me to build a fort in the woods behind my house where I spent a scary night completely alone, telling my mother I was staying down the street at a girlfriend's house. But that is another story.
       In 2006 I decided to take a stab at thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail with several of my friends, and one of the things you must do is to take on a trail name. The name is important for several reasons - first of all it gives you anonymity, and protects your privacy. It also puts you on a level playing field with other hikers. You may all be different ages and from different backgrounds, but you all have a silly trail name, and it's a great way not to take yourself too seriously.

Above, Wild Poodle and Girl Hobo hiking on Cumberland Island, GA,
 below, All Right and Half Left on the Appalachian Trail.

 

       My friend Jane Bailey is the one who named me Girl Hobo. Others approved of the name, so it stuck, and for the past six years it has become my alter ego. Most people who start on the Appalachian Trail have already named themselves, but some have not. For those folks, they will take on a name that someone else gives them while on the trail. For instance, my friend Cindy, who was single at the time, wore a visor that said "Magic" on it. At one point she left the trail to get water and didn't come back for a long time - she had gotten lost. Finally she returned, just as we were all sick with worry, and when she approached the campsite everyone yelled, "Yay!! There's Magic!!" Whew! So that name stuck with her, until she got married a couple of years later, and she and her husband hiked the Appalachian Trail with the monikers, All Right and Half Left. But more about them in another blog post.
       My other friend Roger needed a name, so I named him Sherpa, in the hopes that he would volunteer to carry all of my stuff while we were on the AT. I discovered, however, that Roger does not fall easily for female trickery, although on another excursion through the Osceola National Forest he did carry an entire jar of peanut butter and two dozen granola bars in an act of gallantry. Another acquaintance named Paula is called the Iron Maiden because she drives a motorcycle when she is not hiking on trails. My hiking pal Barbara calls herself Wild Poodle, a nickname given to her by her late husband Tom. When she was in a stressed out, frenetic state, he would sigh and say to her, "Such is the plight of the Wild Poodle." It's a perfect name for her, although nowadays we just call her WP.
       Sometimes a hiker will name themselves, but will get renamed while on the trail for something stupid they have done. This summer I met a young British fellow, Patrick, while I was hiking the AT in Virginia. He was named Wrong Way because he accidentally hiked back down the mountain he had just come up. He tried to shake the name, but to no avail. (Trail people can be ruthless bullies.) Another hiker, a doctor named Buffington from Florida, was attempting to rig up a bear bag by throwing a rope with a rock attached to it, over a high tree limb. The rock came back at him and hit him in the head, quite hard, in fact, so to this day he is named Bear Bag.
       There are hundreds of stories like these, and for more of them, I would suggest you visit www.trailjournals.com. All Right and Half Left have written about their recent adventures on Trail Journals, and when I read their posts, I feel like I'm hiking right along with them! If you were hiking the Appalachian Trail, what would your trail name be?