It was a long trip, but that’s not the part I minded—I’ve been on long trips before and I’ll be on longer trips yet.  No, the part I minded was just that it was all by accident.  I didn’t mean to come to France at all.  What’s worse, I didn’t even know I was on the way until it was far too late to turn back.  But let me back up—if not to the beginning, at least to a calmer moment before my inadvertent French adventure snuck up and sucked me in

a calmer moment before my inadvertent French adventure snuck up and sucked me in

My name is James Etienme Cadhain.  For my misspelled French middle name, I can thank the Office of Vital Records in Beaver County, Oklahoma (where I lived for just shy of thirty-six hours, until the Pickle Family Circus caravan got underway again) and the fallible fingers of a particular clerk whose name I will likely never have the satisfaction of knowing.  You may think that the difference between an M and an N is a trivial matter—and I would have tended to agree—but I can tell you that I have had a lot to explain on this point with certain law enforcement officers in these here parts.

All the same, I’m not bitter about carrying a typo as a middle name, for several reasons.  As my first source of consolation, I frequently remind myself that the error could have been far worse in other parts of the world.  If I’d been born here in France and that same clerk had been typing my birth certificate on a French Azerty keyboard instead of an American Qwerty, I could have been relegated to spending a lifetime as Etien,e.  Which would have been infinitely more inconvenient and psychologically and socially detrimental.  So I count my blessings and carry on, holding my head high

So I count my blessings and carry on, holding my head high

The other reason I don’t mind my typo of a name is that the whole thing—all three names—sounds like such a foreign language to me anyway.  One that I rarely ever hear.  I’ve spent the better part of the past decade and a half known only by my hobo moniker.  On the roads and the rails—from Tampa to Topeka to Tucson to Trenton—they just call me Jimmy Trout.

Which you’ll notice is spelled entirely correctly.

One of the first lessons learned upon induction into the world of hobo culture is that a moniker is not just something you make up—it is bestowed upon you by your brethren.  So just as with the name I was baptized with twenty-nine years ago, I had absolutely no say in the matter.

My re-baptism as Jimmy Trout took place shortly after my re-birth on the rails, at the knowing hands of a jungle elder, who was only mildly under the influence at the time.

The Jimmy part is obvious, but Trout calls for a little explanation.  The sage old man, opining on my general character, noted my tendency to swim upstream, against the current

The sage old man, opining on my general character, noted my tendency to swim upstream, against the current

And besides, who am I to question hobo tradition?  A hobo shouldn't change the name bestowed upon him—even if it's from a guy named Hubcap Charlie.