Screwball product names…
“Him screwball!” — from “Wagon Heels” (1945) (image credit: Youtube)
Given the early settlement dates of south-central Washington State’s apple region, and the late ones for the north end, maybe there’s an understandable reason for apples to have been strongly associated with Indians.
That otherwise bizarre association might have to do with farmers’ living memory of employing Indigenous people to pick their crops.
Maybe that explains the decades-long trend of naming apple orchards and bands in pidgin English and Chinuk Wawa?
Here are the kinds of examples that got me thinking about this:
“Tumwater“, Cashmere, WA (image credit: etsy) :
“U Like Um”, Cashmere, WA — both pidgin-sounding and a joke on the expression “How do you like them apples?” (image credit: eBay) :
“Yum-Yum”, Wenatchee, WA (image credit: Getty) :
“Skookum“, Chelan, WA (image credit: The Label Man) :
“Potlatch“, Yakima, WA (image credit: eBay) :
“The Skookum Injuns”, Wenatchee, WA (image credit: PicClick) :
“Plen Tee Color”, Wapato, WA (image credit: Vintagraph) :
“Chinook“, Selah, WA (image credit: YVMuseum.org) :
“Siwash“, Bridgeport, WA (image credit: eBay) :
“Hiyu“, Wenatchee (image credit: Amazon) :
And then there’s “Indian Apple Ass” cigars — get it? a rebus of “Indianapolis”! (not apples, not from the PNW, and Indians were associated with cigars long before apples were; image credit: Cigar Box Labels) :
