A Note on Trail Names

You probably have noticed that nobody mentioned in my blog has a real name. It's always Oliver Gash, Cash Taint, Lord Sexington, John E. Depth or something else that makes you wonder what the hell was wrong with these hikers' parents.
Well, as some of you know, when you get on the trail, it's almost inevitable that you'll end up with a trail name. I don't know why or how the tradition started, but it's a religion with the thru hiker community. Sometimes it's too much like a religion with the trail name fanatics trying to dub you something ridiculous and contrived within the first week.
Someone once told me that there was a guy hiking this year that practically wouldn't recognize her until she got a trail name. That guy probably also speaks Klingon and finds Madeline Albright attractive.
I actually ended up getting my trail name from a trail name obsessor, but not before turning down a couple of crap ass ones.
The day I got to Scissors Crossing (way back around mile 77), a group of us were sitting under a highway overpass waiting out the high 90's heat. I pulled out my cell phone, made a few calls and then headed out to get in a few extra miles because there was a big waterless stretch in the morning.
Two days later when I'm in Warner Springs, someone tells me that they heard I had a trail name. It was the first I had heard anything of it, so I asked him what it was, all excited that I did something in the first few days that warranted the bestowing of a trail name.
Verizon.
Someone who had their sense of humor singed off playing with lighter fluid as a child didn't like that I was talking on the phone either too loudly, too close to them or maybe even at all. That one didn't stand a chance. I refused to acknowledge it other than to hold it up as an object of ridicule.
A few days later in Idyllwild, a group of us are standing around a campfire BS-ing (the line "She has just enough of an eating disorder to be sexy" was uttered, at which point we decided that we're the reason women have eating disorders in the first place) when the topic of trail names comes up again.
Someone had suggested Spot because I have a GPS tracker called SPOT that alows my family to see where I am, but 1) a lot of people on the trail have them and 2) it's a shitty name.
Many names are thrown out, all forgetable and contrived. Finally I get half annoyed (though when I say the fateful line, it's not in a mean way), wanting to just end the conversation and let the process happen naturally.
"I'm not going to have a trail name thrust upon me without meaning."
And so Thrust was born.
It took me a long time to get used to the idea of introducing myself as Thrust. It just felt weird and I didn't think I'd ever really take to it, like when I tried to call myself B.J. the Speedboat in third grade.
At first I only halfheartedly told people my trail name, prefacing it with "My real name's Brad." Saying it that way made me realize that some people don't like giving their real name on the trail. It also made me realize that those people have no lives.
But eventually, and to my surprise, I just dumped the preamble and I started calling myself Thrust. I answer to it and that's how everyone out here knows me. It's kind of weird if you think about it and it's got to sound especially weird to non-hikers to hear a group of people calling each other Thrust and Bonesaw and Dildo Saggins.
I'm obviously going to get made fun of by both friends and family about this, which is part of the reason why I haven't really mentioned it. But now that I've passed the halfway point, I figure it's time.
I don't get the question so much anymore, but at first it seemed like everyone wanted to know where the name came from.
One guy tells me, "Oh, Thrust. That must be because you hike so fast."
Another - "Are you a geologist?"
Coming out of Big Bear, I met two women going in and I introduce myself. The one woman hears Trust (the most common mispronunciation) and says it in a real satisfied way, like "Trust...this guy must be called that because he's a nice, wholesome, trustworthy guy." Then I correct her and she lets out an embarrased "OH!" and almost can't bring herself to talk to me anymore, her mind having wandered in a dirty direction.
Before we night hiked out of Agua Dulce, a group of us went and got pizza at a place near the grocery store. I was chatting up one of the female hikers in the group (turns out she's married to the guy sitting next to her) and when she hears my trail name, she tells me, "You don't look like a Thrust."
Now, I'm willing to bet that she didn't mean that I didn't look like a geologist, and she'd never seen me hike before, so she couldn't be saying that I looked like a slow poke. So that only leaves one other option. Once I worked my way through the thought process, I was pretty insulted. It's one thing to be told you're bad in bed after the experience itself, but to be told that you just don't look like you'd be any good...low blow.