A small community with modest conveniences. Tracks along main lines in the early days of American railroading had permanent towers that supplied water for steam locomotives. Not so along less important routes, so train crews and any other willing hands had to form bucket brigades to fill the boiler from streams and ponds. Filling the buckets was known as “jerking water,” and any small collection of houses, stores, and community buildings where that was done were “jerkwater towns.” The epithet stuck, especially when people from larger towns and cities wanted a snide way of referring to small towns.

Drug store counterman. Those of us old enough to remember when pharmacies sold nothing but medicine and medications, magazines and comic books, candy, and soda fountain treats, a man behind the zinc-and-marble counter made and dispensed sodas, frappes, milkshakes, malteds, and other ice cream–based concoctions, as well as banana splits, Cokes, lime rickeys, and dozens of other refreshments. He was the soda jerk, the name coming from the fountain dispensers with handles that he jerked down to pour seltzer and other soft drinks. For some unclear reason, women weren't soda jerks.