Stuff About Things
Whats in a name? Well, dont sell one short just because you do not understand whats in it. While in a meeting in Kentucky, we had visitors from Bear Wallow, Mud Lick, Dry Fork, Cyclone, Lamb, Free Will, Flipin, and many others. Each of these likely had some appropriateness in the time and circumstance of its beginning. (You Texans from Cut And Shoot may laugh at my home state, if you have the gall.)
According to Joe Creason (Courier — Journal) one old timer was really put out with the Highway Dept. when he saw a new sign: Litter Barrel, 1/4 Mile. Why that community has been called Kellytown ever since I can remember, he fumed.
A good honest name like Mud Lick (and I knew it in the Ante-Pavement days) faces up to facts. There is no effort to hide the truth, nor to glamorize the failing, to attract these Americana-mad tourists. If you like it, come and sit a spell; if not, move on to Dry Fork, or Eighty Eight.
Seems to me this sophisticated age has unduly complicated the name game. What became of Cloverine Salve? It is replaced by Suiphathiozol; or Chymar, containing Neomycin Palmitate, Hydrocortamate Hydrochloride with 10,000 units of Proteolytic activity. Thats good for a sore, maybe.
Oh well, I suppose accurate labeling demands such detail. If the plainness of Mud Lick, and the accuracy of Cyclopentanoper- hydrophenanthrene were applied to church-goers, we might come up with some names that really have something in them.
For example, No-interest-comes-to- please-his-wife Charlie, Do-it-my-way or Ill quit Robinson, and Gives-a- Dollar Dan. On the brighter side but short of the mark, would be See-my-new-hat Susy, Always-gone-a- visiting Joe, and Sermon-sleeper Sam.
Or we could take a second look at the name God has given His followers, and realize that it also has something in it. The disciples were called Christians. (Acts 11:26) Is this as meaningless as popular usage makes it, or does A-follower-of- Christ mean A follower of Christ?? (Read 1 Pet. 4: 12-16)
With half the honesty of Mud Lick settlers, we wouldnt call ourselves christians, and act like the devil.