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Punkeydoodles Rules!
By George Stock
Oxford County Library
For The Oxford Review
September 10, 2001
Punkeydoodles Corners consists of a handful of houses located where Oxford County meets Perth County and Waterloo Region. Almost as many roads meet there as there are inhabitants in the settlement. And almost no one stops there, except to steal the community's sign.
While Punkeydoodles Corners can easily be missed passing through on Perth Oxford Road east of Tavistock, information about it can be found on the web.
Punkeydoodles Corners is listed twice on databases on the Oxford County Library web site. It is one of over 65 settlements listed in Historic Hamlets of Oxford County. And an historical pillar at Punkeydoodles Corners is mentioned in a list of historic plaques in Oxford County. Both databases are accessible through the Databases and Links page at www.ocl.net .
The historic marker was erected in 1982 when then Prime Minister Joe Clark visited Punkey Doodles Corners. Incidentally, that was the only day on which a post office was ever open in the community.
The Google search engine finds 28 hits for "Punkeydoodles". While there is a variety of types of references to Punkeydoodles, the name appears most frequently as a core example of unusual Canadian place names.
There is some controversy about how the settlement was named. One of the more intriguing stories suggests that the German-speaking inn-keeper there was given the name Punkey Doodle after he mispronounced the words of the song "Yankee Doodle". According to a University of Manitoba cyber newsletter, punkeydoodle was also a Victorian nursery word that means to fool around or fritter away time. There have also been suggestions that pumpkins were an early crop locally and that a farm wife referred to her lazy husband as an old punkeydoodle. Whatever the origin, the name intrigues people.
Aside from the visit of the Prime Minister in 1984, Punkey Doodles has received little national attention. An exception was on July 14, 1997 when over 200 millimeters of rain fell in a few hours washing out local roads and causing other damage. Environment Canada uses that storm as an example of a classical summer thunderstorm in their Fact Sheet "Summer Severe Weather" (http://www.on.ec.gc.ca/severe-weather/summer.html).
Think of Punkeydoodles Corners as something local about which we can learn more though the net. It's intriguing and fun.
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