#1119 Clackety Towns

So I was driving along the road and this truck went by me and it had one of those license plate frames on it from a car dealer. And the frame said it was from Clackamas Oregon.
And I thought, we have such cool and bizarre names for towns in the northwest. Clackamas. It sounds so spooky somehow. Like the noise a skeleton makes at Halloween. Or a weird fifties song—Clackety clack, don’t talk back.
Or maybe it’s some weird percussion instrument. Somewhere between the claves and the maracas. “All right, drum section, on this next tune we need someone who can really play the Clackamas. Then George, I want you on the temple blocks and Jimmy you get the ridged fish thingy.
Of course Clackamas also sounds like a devastating social disease. An STI that that gives you crusty sores and creaky bones. Did you hear, he got a bad case of the Clackamas. They’re trying antibiotics and percussive therapy.
But a place like Clackamas is what you’d expect in these parts. After all, we have towns like Humptulips and Tulalip. Both places that sound like some sort of strange horticultural practices. Tu-lay-lip... so is this a place where all the tulips grow laying down? And how about Humptulips? Obviously tulips they only plant at places like the Mima Mounds. A tulip species engineered for optimum growth in hummocks.
Worse, we have a town named Sequim. Put aside for a moment that it’s spelled SEE-quee-im, like the sequins on your disco outfit. It’s pronounced squim. Like squirm but without the R.
And there are no pleasant words the start with the skwih sound. You got the aforementioned squirm. But then you got squiggle, which brings to mind slimy snakes. You got squid, one of the least attractive of animals, a chewy snotball with suckers. Again far from pleasant.
And finally, you got squishy, which sounds for all the world like shoes after you’ve stepped in a puddle.
There’s a civic motto for you. Sequim, we remind you of your shoes after you’ve stepped in a puddle.
America, ya gotta love it.