Ma And Pa Kettle Lived Here

Chimacum is a community on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state.  The town was named after the Chimakum people, Native Americans who inhabited the area.

We've been here several times now, as we deliver to a regular customer nearby, and each time we drive into town we pass a road named Egg and I Road.  The road's name has a fun place in history, as it's where the fictional characters of the 1940s, Ma and Pa Kettle, lived.

Ma and Pa Kettle were created by author Betty McDonald, first appearing in her 1945 novel, The Egg and I.  The book was a humorous memoir of her life as a young woman on a chicken farm in Chimacum.  Her neighbors became Ma and Pa Kettle, two of the characters who were supposedly a composite of people in the area.

Not everyone felt they were composite enough.  Years later a lawsuit was brought by members of the community claiming they too closely resembled the characters, and that people in the town knew exactly who they were.  From the book came a film starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray in the lead roles of the young husband and wife.   

This was all before my time of course.  I'd never heard of The Egg and I but I had heard of Ma and Pa Kettle.  Where or why, I don't know.=, but I know them.  Who knows, maybe from my parents or grandparents.

But now when we pass Egg and I Road, I'll know exactly where the unusual name came from.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
2013: "License, Registration and Insurance Card, Please"
2012: Welcome To Hell
2011: When She Passes Each One She Passes Goes Ahhhh
2010: The Key To Being Funny
2009: Wishes Really Do Come True
2008: Eddie Plays It Safe Friday
2007: What Road?
2006: I’m STILL Looking To Get Me Some Good BBQ
2005: Say Cheese!!