Bob Peoples (Justin Fowler)

Title: Bob Peoples

General Information about Item:

Informant Data:

John Brady is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2019. John was born in the suburbs of Chicago, IL. He grew up just north of the city in a nice suburban town. John was part of a boy scout group growing up. Every summer, John and his fellow boy scouts went backpacking. They backpacked all over the United States. His scout troop went to various places such as New Mexico, California, Wyoming, and Wisconsin. One of his earliest backpacking trips was a section of the Appalachian Trail around North Carolina and Tennessee. The trail started out of Hot Springs, NC. John’s early experience with the Appalachian Trail sparked an interest and has had him continuing to hike when he so desires.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context: Backpackers often travel with one another and share stories along the trail. Often there are various experts within the hiking community. Backpackers need to sleep and on occasion they will stay at hostiles or other types of shelter to stay warm and recharge for the next day’s hike.
Social Context: This specific name came about when talking about well-known members or people within the hiking community. Often when backpackers decide to stay in hostiles, hikers occasionally engrave words or phrases in the walls (frowned upon).

Item:

Bob Peoples was a long time trail angel (someone who provides necessities for hikers and are on the trail exclusively to help hikers. Peoples is a very well respected member of the hiking community and to some extent a “Hall of Famer”. In fact, he is considered the Chuck Norris of Backpacking. This is significant because children compare Chuck Norris to a miracle worker- some go as far as comparing him to Jesus or a God-like figure.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

(replace Chuck Norris with Bob Peoples)

Transcript:

“There are some very famous trail people. There is a whole shelter dedicated to him. You know those Chuck Norris jokes? Where Chuck Norris’ tears could cure cancer. And you would just have his name replaced with Bob Peoples. Bob Peoples is a long time trail angel. A trail angel is somebody who provides trail magic. He runs a hostile, he runs a trail building crew, somewhere in the South.”

Collector’s Comments:

I found this super amusing. As a kid growing, up Chuck Norris jokes are one of the most basic types of children folklore. So, hearing that there is a similar type of folklore within hiking was delightful and kind of a nostalgic experience.

Collector’s Name: Justin Fowler

Tags/Keywords:

Dartmouth Folklore Archive