Appalachian Word of the Week -- BUGGY

This week’s word is BUGGY. 

No, I don’t mean a baby buggy. 

I also don’t mean how it is when you go outside to sit in the swing with your sweetie on a steamy summer evening and you’re swarmed with biting, buzzing, flying bugs that have a hankerin’ for a taste of your blood.

I mean a shopping BUGGY. If you’re citified or from another part of the world, you might call it a shopping cart or just cart. In my family, we called it a BUGGY.

I loved pushing around the BUGGY at the A&P and trying to slip a few extra treats in while my Mom and Dad weren’t watching. They usually caught me, though.

I loved the BUGGIES where you put the baby of the family in it facing you so they can teeth on the handle of BUGGY that has a collection of every germ and disease known to mankind. Yesiree, we mountain folk are a healthy lot because we became immune to any disease you can imagine by the age of two from gnawing on that handle. Our BUGGY was nothing like the ones we have today.

Today, we coddle our youngsters in molded plastic BUGGIES that look like racecars or spaceships. 

Even worse, some grocery stores (like Trader Joe’s) provide miniature BUGGIES to their mini-me kids of customers. Those things are downright dangerous. If you’re not careful you’ll leave the store with bruises from a mini-me that flies down the aisles without looking, doesn’t stop when you do, and then stops right in front of where you want to go and won’t move out of the way. I don’t know where they learn … oh, yeah … they learned it from their parents.

I never wanted to push the BUGGY when my sister was sitting in the baby seat. Not only could she splutter baby juices all over me, but she could also kick me in the gut as I pushed her. I gladly took my place behind Mom during that phase.

I always thought how nice it would be to have one of those BUGGIES to cart stuff around. It wouldn’t have worked too well in our driveway, though, since it was full of gravel and ashes from the coal stove.

Taking a ride in a BUGGY

My brother and I tried to get away with racing with the BUGGY while one of us was inside. Dad didn’t let that happen for long. He’d be in our faces, wagging that finger, and saying, “You’re gonna get in Dutch.” (We talked about that word a few weeks ago)

Homeless person with BUGGY

We had one old lady in Harlan who had confiscated a BUGGY from A&P and used it to cart her worldly possessions around town. I remember seeing her often near the Court House. Summer or winter, she wore several layers of clothes and had on a winter coat—as tattered and dirty as they were. I always wondered what all she had in that BUGGY. I could see a lot of newspapers (probably the Harlan Daily Enterprise). I imagine she had some food hidden away in there. After she died, I heard the story that she had a lot of money stuffed in the bottom of that BUGGY. That was a surprise. I’m still not sure if the story was true or just one of those urban legends.

Do you remember pushing a BUGGY at A&P or Cas Walkers? Have any funny stories about something you or someone else did with a BUGGY?

Tweetables:

Appalachian Word of the Week -- BUGGY (Click here to Tweet)

Are you a little BUGGY? (Click here to Tweet)