Historical Nugget

And now, a dash of Arizona history.

We live in Wittmann, which is a somewhat amorphous geographical region that lies, roughly, between Surprise and Circle City. The area is becoming more popularly known as Surprise, thanks to the Professional Urban Planners (read "ambitious bastards") in Surprise who decided that the whole area should eventually join their city.

But for now, it's unincorporated, and it's called Wittmann, and Surprise can go fish. Upon touring Our Fair Wide Spot In The Road, one will note that the school is called not Wittmann, but Nadaburg. What up with that??

The only thing here, originally, was a railroad siding that the railroad named Nada, the Spanish word nothing. They named it that because there was probably nothing there - maybe the cemetary and some free-floating dread, but not much else. As people started to live around the railroad siding, which for some reason they often seem to end up doing, the resulting pocket of habitation became known as Nadaburg, or almost literally "Nothing-town". Later the siding (and habitation pocket) was renamed Wittmann, but the school at least remembers the really old days and the original name of the place.

Nothing-town. I prefer that over Surprise, which I can't really think about without hearing the Gomer Pyle USMC theme music.