[Dixielandjazz] Re:Jeep was Rabbit was Johnny Hodges was Bird

[David Palmquist]

It's convoluted.  You will remember the announcement a week or two ago that 
the American army now allows a recording to be played instead of Reveille 
since they don't have many buglers today.

While en route to the Pentagon in a HumVee, the commanding general of the 
music corps was musing about what recordings to play, and he heard his 
driver humming one of Charlie Parker's solos.  He insisted from then on 
that all his drivers him something by Parker, and they all started to call 
his vehicle the Hummer.

There's another theory.  It's a big, awkward vehicle, hard to park, so they 
nicknamed it Hardparker.  Since the tires are all-seasons, they hum, so the 
name became Humming Parker.  But people being people, that became Humming 
Bird, which eventually got shortened to Hummer.  They probably would have 
shortened to Bird instead, but they didn't want to be thought of as 
admiring the Air Force.

(And if anyone thinks I'm going to sign my name to this, they're nuts.)



At 08:59 16-11-02, Stephen Barbone wrote:
>Love all this chatter about the origin of "Jeep". As long as we're on this 
>thread, anybody care to comment about "Hummer", as many call the "Humvee" 
>these days?  ;-) VBG
>
>Cheers,
>Steve
>
>
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