Genre Slang, Legend

Language English

Country of Origin United States

Informant Onshin

Date Collected March 6, 2018

Collected by Laura Jeliazkov

Informant Data

Onshin – who goes by Boon – is a cashier at the Hanover Co-op on South Park Street. She has lived in the Upper Valley region for 35 years. Before that she and her sister Sandy lived a somewhat nomadic lifestyle, hiking up and down and all over the country. Boon’s hobby is working colonial reenactments; she has worked them at locations all over the country. She takes to a colonial way of life herself: she has lived, now, by candlelight, for three years. She also lives completely plastic-free.

Contextual Data 

Mark Baker was an infamous man of Appalachia: many hikers of the Upper Valley region know of his crusades of the trail. He had a reputation as being a man who, when living on the trail, could sleep anywhere.

Item

When hikers find a suitable place at which to post up for the night, they will shout, “Found a Mark Baker!”

Significance

The carrying on of a memory – a word, phrase, name or concept – which may lose its explicit, original meaning, but which maintains its associations.