What does one call it when a bunch of fabric gets cut-up when making an item of clothing, and then there are a bunch of leftovers? What are those residual scraps? Remnants? That’s what I was left to work with today, a bunch of little snippets that didn’t quite make it into previous articles. They’ve been hording valuable real estate on my list of potential topics for quite awhile, cluttering up the place.
I think I have enough of them to cobble together into a single article and dispense with them.
Shooting for H’s
I grew up in farm country. I’m quite familiar with 4-H. The 4-H of my childhood focused on making better farmers through agricultural fairs, educational efforts, overnight camps, and the like. I vaguely remember my sister grooming a horse or something like that for some “Old School” 4-H contest.
The present-day 4-H, from what I gleaned from their website, shifted rather more broadly into the suburbs, urban areas and even internationally. The four H’s referenced head, heart, hands, and health. What I didn’t know until just now was that 4-H was part of the US Department of Agriculture, specifically through its National Institute of Food and Agriculture. I guess I never thought about it in that amount of detail before.
How should I interpret this odd lake in Carthage, Texas?
H and H Lake / 3-H Lake, Carthage, Texas, USA
The U.S. Board on Geographic Names provided two names for this lake. One was “H and H Lake” with a Geographic Names Information System entry date of 30-Nov-1979. The alternate name was 3-H Lake, entered 06-Apr-2000. It’s like the lake was trying to work its way up to 4-H status.
Actually, I think the H’s may have been associated with families that lived in the area, Heaton, Hill and Hull. Notice the small roads named for them, all leading up to the lake. I’m related to the Hull family which is how I discovered this odd little lake.
That wasn’t the only minor, inconsequential road named for my distant relatives. I’ve also discovered a Howder Street in Hillsdale, Michigan, named for the brother of my 3rd-great-grandfather (and featured in the third article every published on 12MC!). I finally got to visit Howder Street in August 2016.
Rappers’ Delight
No-see-um is another term for a sandfly. They made a very brief appearance in The Article That Nobody Will Ever See. Well the bug wasn’t featured. Rather I posted a map of No-see-um Lake, Shoshone Co., Idaho. I almost chose another location, a lake in Wisconsin.
So I found it amusing that Old School Road led to the lake. I reserved it because I thought I might want to create a pun with Old School Rap. Then I discovered that there were lots of Old School roads because apparently there were a lot of old schools, and the potential joke lost its allure (although I still think that the Sugarhill Gang should move to Georgia).
Caribbean Paradox
I found a nice photograph of Basseterre, St. Kitts, the capital city of the Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis. It looked so typically Caribbean, and dare I say perhaps even a bit Old School Caribbean.
Does Fort Collins, Colorado look anything like the Caribbean? No, I feel fairly certain that Fort Collins might be considered pretty much the equal and opposite of anything Caribbean. That’s not intended to disparage Fort Collins. I wouldn’t expect to see Rocky Mountain High in Basseterre, either.
Why would a developer consider Caribbean-themed streets appropriate along the Front Range: Basseterre Place; Saint John Place; Barbuda Drive; Aruba Drive, and so on. Really? How hard up for names would someone have to be before having to resort to something this far out of alignment with the prevailing geography?
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