Southern names...

Brother Josiah Hardscuffle here again. Now you know where the sign off name comes from - 'tis truly a southern name, just like my sister, Modine Gunch. So many things were wonderful about being raised in the deep south with many melodic sounding names given to babies. However, my sister and I were ones who did not share in such melodic names. A lot of the south named their children with double names. Both my older brother (now deceased) and sister were given double names and called such until they began school. Sister Modine refuses to allow me to share her other given name and I will respect her wishes. Both siblings were named after relatives, but when I came along, unplanned and unexpected, no double names were left and my father picked Josiah out of the gazetteer of names in the dictionary.

All of my cousins on my mother's side of the family were named with double names and her remaining family still refers to them with those double names. So, from the beginning, I stood out among family members, because I was just called Josiah. From the get go, as they say in the south, I was different. I recall my mother's saying when I would wonder about someone's else's behavior that I did not understand: "Ah, Josiah, all the world art queer but thee and me and sometimes I wonder about thee!" How prophetic those words of an old quote were (however incorrectly quoted)! How little did she know that would I grow up to be that very descriptive noun.

Bro. Hardy