How did you get your screen name?

[Broke Jeep Joe]

Hey all,

Thought i would take us away from road clousures and pipelines for a bit as this subject has always interested me.
My screen name has actually 2 origins, i had an old 79 jeep cherokee that was a joint venture with my good friend pope of the pines! It was always broken down so we have "Broke Jeep" Joe. After growing tired of fixing it i bought a new Jeep Wrangler, i jokingly then became "Broke" Jeep Joe, the joke centering on the payment for the new rig! Oddly i no longer have a Jeep, i drive a Ford Explorer Sport!
Some screen names are obvious but how did you come up with your screen name?

 

[46er]

Climbed a few hills in upstate NY.

 

[smoke_jumper]

Well I was active in the FFS and the fire dept but the name worked on the BBQ forum as well so I just kept it.

 

[Don Catts]

Not sure, it was here when I got here.

 

[Spung-Man]

Spung is Piney speak for the thousands of intermittent pools of water that dot the Pine Barrens. Rhodehamel (1970) estimated that 2% of the Pine Barrens surface is covered by these closed basins. Everyone who grew up in the Pines knew what a spung is – a pocket of water. The name’s origin is obscure. A “spung” is defined as a purse or fob, a small ‘pocket” formerly made in the waistband of breeches. It was made of wash-leather or stout lining material, and was sewn in just under the waist.

Peter Wolfe, my geology professor back at Cook College (’82), wrote about spungs as ice-thaw features during the 1950s. He grew up on a Pine Barrens farm at Nesco, so we both always had lots to talk about spung dynamics. Their origins have been controversial. In 1999 I paired up with an eminent Polar authority to reinterpret the spungs as Pleistocene blowouts (French & Demitroff 2001). I always get a chuckle out of outside researchers, who still refuse to apply the local appellation, and instead call spungs vernal pools, intermittent pools, bogs, coastal plain ponds, dry ponds, and fens when talking about these cool puddles.

 

[Boyd]

From my mother.

 

[kayak karl]

I would wheel my kayaks down Main St in Penns Grove to the river. People would ask "Who is the guy with the kayaks" answer "karl". It stuck and was shortened to Kayak and became my trail name on the AT.

 

[Ben Ruset]

My parents had a baby.

 

[SuperChooch]

In college my roommates and I used to affectionately call each other names, usually progressively becoming more offensive. At one point in time I called them "chooch" (ie jackass) and they called me something more offensive. What is more offensive than a "chooch"? Why a "super chooch" of course. I alway reminisced about that time and found it comical, so that is where it came from.

 

[TheePackRat]

Mine is a nod to my dad. He ran a rooming house just about until his last day. He had lots of time to collect stuff. Lots of it. Attics, crawl spaces, umpteen garages, basements all full of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. He had at least one of everything.

 

[Broke Jeep Joe]

Mine is a nod to my dad. He ran a rooming house just about until his last day. He had lots of time to collect stuff. Lots of it. Attics, crawl spaces, umpteen garages, basements all full of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. He had at least one of everything.

Now there is a word? I have not heard since my mother passed, takes me back, thanks!

 

[TheePackRat]

Funny, I'm sure I picked it up from my mom also.

Looked it up and it's WWI army slang.

 

[manumuskin]

I picked a creek nearby and took that name.It was either this or menantico or Buckshutem.Menantico is now also taken.Any takers for Buckshutem?

 

[manumuskin]

Spung man how do you tell a vernal pond from a spung? I always assumed a spung was designated by it's vegetation these usually being filled with leatherleaf and hence this made them a spung.You seem to be saying a spung is a geological formation with no ties to vegetation.Are you saying all vernal ponds are spungs?Any pond in NJ not created by man or beaver must either be geologically created or perhaps a burnout in a dried out peat accumulation such as the prairies of Okefenokee. A vernal pool would be referring to the fact that many of these ponds only hold water in them during late winter and spring when the water table rises to fill these ponds but more loosely refers to just about any intermittent pond that does not support a fish population because it is indeed temporarily dry every year.Does this mean vernal pools/ponds and spung would be interchangeable?

 

[Menantico]

I picked a creek nearby and took that name.It was either this or menantico or Buckshutem.Menantico is now also taken.Any takers for Buckshutem?

I chose mine because the Menantico is the creek I grew up near, and also a tip of the hat to Al (manumuskin) for being a knowledgable guy and holding down Cumberland County proper.

 

[manumuskin]

I actually grew up closer to Buckshutem and Bear swamp but just liked manumuskin and did spend a lot of time there once I got wheels.

 

[Spung-Man]

Spung man how do you tell a vernal pond from a spung?

Spungs are better called intermittent ponds, a term that Pinelands scientists prefer to use. Vernal pools are pockets of water filled by surface runoff. Spungs are instead fed by grounwater passing through them. Wade through a spung and you will feel cold pockets of water contrasting with otherwise warmer hydrofill.

Are you saying all vernal ponds are spungs?

Spung is a very old local name used to describe any natural intermittent pond. Generically they can all be lumped together as closed basins. Spungs are a northern variant of the mysterious Carolina Bays that dot the Eastern seaboard from New Jersey to South Carolina. We (French & Demitroff 2001) interpret these basins as blowouts formed by strong winds flowing of the Laurentide Ice Sheet under dry sparsely vegetated conditions.

Spungs are windows into the local groundwater table. Some spungs once had permanent fish populations. Very few if any support fish today. Many are now dry woods. Ever so slowly, these ponds have experienced shorter and shorter periods of hydrofill allowing vegetation to take hold obliterating all evidence of their form.

We are over-pumping groundwater from the aquifers at such a rate that the shallow groundwater table is dropping. 17-trillion gallons in reserve and 45-inches a year precipitation in recharge is not sufficient to keep our shallow wetlands from drying up. That is a bad thing, since spungs provide critical habitat to many threatened and endangered plants and animals.

S-M

 

[RednekF350]

Peter Wolfe, my geology professor back at Cook College (’82), wrote about spungs as ice-thaw features during the 1950s. He grew up on a Pine Barrens farm at Nesco, so we both always had lots to talk about spung dynamics. Their origins have been controversial. In 1999 I paired up with an eminent Polar authority to reinterpret the spungs as Pleistocene blowouts (French & Demitroff 2001). I always get a chuckle out of outside researchers, who still refuse to apply the local appellation, and instead call spungs vernal pools, intermittent pools, bogs, coastal plain ponds, dry ponds, and fens when talking about these cool puddles.

I am Cook '81 Mark and I too had Wolfe as a professor. To say he was an interesting and intelligent man would be understated. I still have my The Geology and Landscapes of New Jersey textbook on my desk here at work.

I never knew that he grew up in Nesco. He certainly expanded his horizons beyond the pines over his lifetime as I remember his slides showing him riding elephants in India.

 

[Stamos]

I am told I resemble a famous actor.

 

[Spung-Man]

Any takers for Buckshutem?

Which Buckshutem, the one in Cumberland or Monmouth County? The latter is a Buckshootem Branch now called Bannen Meadow Branch just south of Wyckoff Mills on US Route 9 (Litowinski, undated, History of Howell). It’s on the northern fringe of Pine Barrens. Buckshootem Bridge is probably the Fort Plains Road crossing. So much for the folklore about “there’s a buck, shoot ‘em.” That name probably has Algonquin roots.

S-M