h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Everyone who will have a chance to read this happens to know my real name. Including some of my other nicknames, I am known (both affectionately and jokingly) as the Walking Dead. This fits in with my heritage. A little history is in order.

The name Tuhy goes back to Ellis Island at the beginning of the last century, when the name Tuhe'ho became one of millions of names changed by translators as they went through the heartbreak island just off the coast of New Jersey.

The name Tuhe'ho goes back to Lutherans in Solvakia in the mid 1700s. Slovakia (my father's side is 100% Slovak) is arguably the most Roman Catholic (and actually the most moral) nation in the world. This is because vice is not well tolerated in the country, and any amoral slovaks would just go and live in the neighboring prostitute filled Czech Republic.

In the 1700s, Lutheranism was not well tolerated, (though at the time Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism were basically the same) and my ancestors were persecuted because of it. They lived like gypsies moving around in wagon carts, though living like this was nothing new to the ChepalyardicTuhe'ho clan.

Not having any oxen to pull their wagons, the men of the ChepalyardicTuhe'ho clan pulled their wagons themselves, by wearing oxen yolks on their own necks and shoulders. This by itself is physically exhausting, but to pull a wagon with it borders on lunacy.
When the ChepalyardicTuhe'ho clan (both famous and infamous in their nation) finally found a Lutheran town where they were welcomed. Impressed by their feats of endurance and pulling their wagons with oxen yolks, the townsfolk remarked (both seriously and in laughing disbelief) that the ChepalyardicTuhe'hos were "Tuhe'ho", the Slovak word meaning tough, enduring, or determined. When they found out that the word Tuhe'ho was the second half of the name of clan ChepalyardicTuhe'ho, they decided that the first part of the name for their clan was unnecessesary, as that was how the ChepalyardicTuhe'ho clan became the Tuhe'ho clan.

But the ChepalyardicTuhe'ho clan which became the Tuhe'ho clan was not always the Tuhe'ho clan. A thousand years before they were the Chepalyardic clan, but that all changed with a pair of monks, Cyril and his brother Methodius.

Cyril and Methodius (now Saints Cyril and Methodius) were brothers in the 800s from Byzantium, who went to convert the Slavic peoples. They went to Rome and the papacy gave approval for their mission, though many in Rome thought these two brothers were insane to even attempt to convert the "unconvertable pagan Slavs".

Cyril and Methodius managed to convert either the Chepalyardic or the leader of Chepalyardic clan (if the leader converted than everybody had to). Bishop Methodius (though only a priest at the time) baptized the Chepalyardic clan and christened them a new clan name, ChepalyardicTuhe'ho, both naming them and complimenting their attributes in their own language.

And so my nickname is the Walking Dead. No matter how tired I get, or how much the world and stress (much of which I bring on myself) I still keep on going. I am enduring and determined. A faith decision (a leap of faith for sure) motivated me to make a profession of faith and become Roman Catholic on Friday morning of this last week. I was accepted and confirmed at 8:30 on a Friday morning, which is also interesting, as I was born at 8:30 on a Friday morning. When a person is confirmed Roman Catholic they decide on a confirmation name. I decided on Methodius.

So, my name is Micah Joel Desiderious Methodius Tuhe'ho, the Walking Dead. And I keep on coming.