IN LOVE WITH AMERICA'S NAMES

INTERCOURSE, PA — It was the longest field trip in history, so meandering that we called it "Highway History." During the summer of Apollo 11 and Woodstock, thirty-some high schoolers studied for three weeks, then set out by bus to tour America's past.

Henry Ford's Michigan museum to Boston's Freedom Trail. Hotels and burgers and seeing girls in their pajamas. But what I remember most is Intercourse.

Pennsylvania, that is. Amish buggies. Hats and beards. And then there was that place name -- a gift for wise-cracking teens. Our teachers took us to Intercourse just to send postcards home, stamped: INTERCOURSE. We spent a half-hour before heading on. "We're pulling out of Intercourse," someone said. I've never been back but ever since, I have been in love with American names. Seems I was not the first.

I have fallen in love with American names.

The sharp names that never get fat.

The snakeskin titles of mining claims

The plumed-war bonnet of Medicine Hat

Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.

Like Stephen Vincent Benét, I find our heritage on maps, maps that contain our collective character. Before enjoying Intercourse, so to speak, I thought the only funny place-name was Lake Titicaca. But I soon went searching for American names. Pennsylvania was a good start.

Luckily, I had no Google Maps. I had to scan an atlas. Sprawled on the carpet, I let my imagination roam across Pennsylvania, beyond Intercourse to Bird-in-Hand, King of Prussia, Tire Hill and Snow Shoe, Star Brick and in the state’s mountainous middle, Jersey Shore. It was a long way to Distant, PA, but along the way I passed through Boston and Bethlehem, Frisco, Scotland, and California. California, Pennsylvania is an hour south of Pittsburgh, not far from Lover, Crucible, and scenic Scenery, Pennsylvania. If you get to Drunkard, turn back. You can't miss it.

Once I'd gone from Intercourse to Drunkard (it's usually traveled in the other direction), I paged on to other states. Texas names towns after people -- Alice and Anna, Clyde and Clint, Louise and Lolita. Western towns are haunted by death. Deadwood, Death Valley, Tombstone. The South abounds with Biblical names -- Jericho, Mount Zion, Nazareth.. New Jersey names are so colorful that folkie Dave Van Ronk used them as lyrics.

Foreign tourists admire our native names -- Mississippi and Monongahela and my favorite, Susquehanna. But moving westward, Americans just wanted to have fun.

Yes, we have dozens of Beaver Falls and Elk Creeks, and at least forty Springfields. Yet where besides the U.S. will you find Big Butt Mountain (NC), What Cheer (IA) and Wankers Corner (OR)? Then there's Joe, Montana, (pop. 22) which cheated by re-naming itself after the quarterback. American place names are rarely boring. NOTE: there is a Boring, Oregon, a Boring, Tennessee, and a Boring, Maryland, but we won't go there.

These are troubled times, but perhaps some solace can be taken in American names. Can a country hosting Toad Suck, Arkansas and Superior Bottom, West Virginia take itself too seriously? Could anyone question the future of towns that dare to be No Name, Colorado or Normal, Illinois?