Q: I live off of Trickum Road in Cobb County, and I’ve heard of other roads in the Atlanta area that also have the word Trickum in their name, such as Five Forks Trickum. While I’m not an Atlanta native, I’ve lived here since the 1960s and can’t find anyone who knows the origin of the word Trickum. I am eager to learn what it means. Can you help me?
—Nan Cannon, Marietta
A: I won't pull your leg, but there doesn't appear to be a definite answer.
There was a Trickum community in Gwinnett County in the 1800s, the scene of a Civil War skirmish in 1864, that might have been named for a family named Trickum.
Or, and this is no joke, Trickum might have originated from an unsavory business practice.
The Gwinnett Historical Society’s Bill Baughman has heard stories of a deceptive businessman in the area who would put his thumb on the scales so he could charge his customers more money, but he’s “prone to think” Trickum was named for a person.
The actual community of Trickum was in the vicinity of “the intersection of Five Forks Trickum Road and Rockbridge Road, within sight of Stone Mountain,” Baughman said.
The naming mystery also surrounds the Trickum Road that leads from Marietta to Woodstock.
“All I can find is that the road here was paved in the 1950s,” the Marietta Museum of History’s Christa McCay said. “There’s no family with that last name that I know of. I’m not sure where the name Trickum actually came from.”
Q: Can you tell me if Johnny Mercer was from Georgia? I think someone told me that one time, but I don’t know for sure. What can you find out?
A: Jeepers, creepers, Mercer, an Academy Award-winning lyricist, was born and is buried in Savannah, a connection that inspired "Moon River," one of his most famous hits.
Mercer put his words to Henry Mancini’s music for “Moon River,” which Audrey Hepburn sang on the fire escape in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
“Moon River” won the 1961 Academy Award for Best Original Song and the 1962 Grammy for Song of the Year.
Mercer also won Oscars for “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe,” (1946), “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” (1951) and for “Days of Wine and Roses” (1962).
By the way, he also wrote the words for “Jeepers Creepers,” a 1938 hit and another one of his more than 1,700 songs.
Mercer was only 66 when he died in 1976.
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