I’ll play.
Many moons ago I moved to NE PA and bought the farmstead. Folks out there go by many names. We have Rednecks, city slickers and all them, but there are no Hillbillies or hicks, being the foothills of the catskills and all. So, folks refer to people who live out in the sticks, make what they need and make a few trips to town now and again, end of the dirt road kind of places; Woodchucks. I became known as The Woodchuck when folks would introduced me. Kind of like the reference name, Redneck; city folks use it as a derogatory term, we take it as a compliment! LOL! If folks didn’t know me, they thought it was my actual name. “Hey, Woodchuck!”
As moons come and go and my place became the local hostel for wayward old timey musicians. Anyone having a gig in the area knew they could just drop by and there would be a warm place to stay for a spell and food to eat. It probably didn’t hurt that I was pretty self-reliant back then too. Big garden and lots of canned goods. Had a copper apparatus in the basement – and knew how to use it proper. A little garden off the usual one and a 10 x 12 wine room stocked with crocks and carboys. My friend the green grocer would call me when there was a load ready for the dumpster. Rules of the house were: You can have all you want, but you can’t take any with ya and I don’t sell nothing.
Anyway… I took to pickin’ with folks and times we would get an offer to pick at an event. No, nothing fancy, parties and get togethers mostly. Friends all knew when certain folks were there and would usually make up a reason for the party. None were actual paying gigs, maybe some gas money and exchange of food or goods for the musicians. Well, there were always different musicians in the group, rarely more than one or two that had played together more than an evening or three at my place. We needed an official type name, rather than coming up with one for each time a group of us picked.
I had become known as Woody the Woodchuck by then. Woodrow W. Woodchuck for the official title I guess. Since I was pretty much always a standard member of the gathering, they came up with a transient name: Woody and the Woodchucks. If I wasn’t playing, they would just be The Woodchucks. Then it just shortened to Woodchucks. “You having music at the party tonight?” “Yup, Woodchucks.”
So, onward to the Internet age. Back to skool to learn me some new talents. Email came about and the text web. I would sign everything WWW (Woodrow W. Woodchuck). I used it for a while then everything got the WWW prefix! Had to change my email and all! LOL I’m still known as Woody and still proud to be a Woodchuck. Wwwoodchuck is the other alias I go by if Woody and Woodchuck are taken. Used them since… 1990 or around there.