Thursday, November 20, 2008

Who are Bogue and Weejer anyway?

I've had a few people ask me "who are Bogue and Weejer?" And I'm thinking "you know, Bogue and Weejer! Duh." But then I remember, yeah, no one knows that inside joke. It all started about 28 years ago when my sister was born. My grandfather, on my mom's side, had just gotten back from hunting in the Amazonian rainforest. He had been there for about 2 years with my grandmother. He lost an eye and three fingers amidst the prehistoric wiles of the jungle. He had a glass eye fitted and had it inscribed with these words around the iris... Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes. The day following their return to the states, my sister was born. She goes by Sara, but her birth name is Penthesilea, which means "queen of the Amazons." Papaw would flood Sara with stories of his adventures even before she could speak...his run-ins with the natives, his escape from a hoard of wild boar, amputating his own fingers to save his life...she was fascinated...as were all of the other grandchildren that followed.

So, I'm sure you realize that none of that is true. I do have a sister, Sara, and my grandparents...but that's it. But I had to tell you that because it relates to Bogue and Weejer. Papaw really would tell us ridiculous stuff like that and we all believed him. Mamaw would get onto him saying it wasn't good for us, but I mean, we all turned out somewhat okay, I guess. When Papaw was a young boy (this is true, btw) in the mountains and woods of North Alabama, he and his two cousins would play. Papaw has never called anybody by their real names...even his own wife and children (my mom and uncles). For example, my grandmother is called Snuff (he was in the Korean War and "snafu" was a term they used [I won't explain it] and Papaw shortened it to "Snuff" and that's what he calls Mamaw.) My mom and two uncles are Lucy, Laid, and Line (shortened from Lucy Goosey Gander, Ladybug Johnson, and Linus the Lionhearted.) So...as you can see, he loves to come up with new names for people. The names he gave his two cousins were Bogue and Weejer. The name he gave his best friend growing up was Sedrick Wolf Weehunk. As they all got older, Bogue and Weejer decided to do something productive...they became moonshiners. They would pay off the sheriff in town and he'd let them keep moonshinin'. Here's a picture of them and their moonshine still:
Actually, that's not really them. Just a picture I googled (and one that I do not own the rights to nor to which I mean any copyright infringement, blah blah). Well, when Papaw would tell us stories...either of Old Blue, the dog who saved the three-legged lamb or his own version of the three little piggies, where the piggies burned the wolf alive at the end (the stories were kind of morbid, now that I think about it)...he would always throw Bogue and Weejer into the story somehow. And Bogue and Weejer did a lot of things... they invented lightning, they went into space - five times, they could speak any language, they could talk to animals, they wrestled bars (bears), they rode horses backwards, they panned for gold in 1848 (we never caught onto that one), they made necklaces out of cougar teeth and so on. We believed every. single. word.

So, now, when the whole family gets together, and someone asks a question...any question...Bogue and Weejer are some how involved. "Who ate the last cookie? Bogue and Weejer." "Whose room are you staying in? Bogue and Weejer's." "What firm do you work with now? Bogue and Weejer, LLC" "What time is it? Bogue and Weejer." Basically, we're a proud family of liars...and moonshiners. We know that only a handful of the stories Papaw told us growing up were true, but somehow, Papaw can still get us every now and then. My mom, Papaw and my uncles are masters of tall tales. They'll have us captivated with an incredible narrative of a guy surviving a shark attack and how he fought off the beast with his own severed leg and we're all like "Wow! Where did this happen? Is the guy okay now?" The reply we'd get would be "Yeah, he's at Bogue and Weejer Hospital in Florida." Then we'd groan and roll our eyes...punching ourselves for falling for yet another B&W story.

Anyways. I couldn't think of a good name for my company and since Bogue and Weejer had done everything else in the world, I figured they might as well have a design company and blog, so there you go.

1 comment:

I like your comments.
Mom, keep it clean.
Have a fabtastic day!