Names

Bickleton was named after Charles Bickle and his wife Fanny Bacon Bickle (that woman just had no luck with names). Bickleton is in Klickitat County.

Road names are not very inventive out here: Cemetery Road has a cemetery on it. Dot Road leads down to Highway 14 and east of Dot Road there is East Road—in between the two, you could choose to take Middle Road. But Middle Road isn’t paved, so I don’t recommend it. The town leading through the middle of the town is called Market Road—the local market is on it.

Place names are a little more original than the road names. There’s the Bluebird Inn, the Hen’s Nest, Lazy A Ranch, the Honey Do Ache’rs, and the Whoop-n-Holler Museum.

Even many of the people have countrified names, names that I’ve only read in books. The men are mostly named Bob and Earl and Bob. I’ve met women with names that I’ve only seen in books: Nelda and Wilma and Irma. And some I’ve never even heard of like Delma and Lovina.

All the place names fascinate me, but some of the local pronunciations makes the grammarian in me shudder. Creek is crick, turbine is turbin, and I’ve heard tortillas with the “L” sound pronounced.