Kylertown
Kyler is my real name. i know it’s a little unusual. i get called Tyler all the time and people often think i’m a man before they meet me. i was put on a boys soccer team when i was 12 (which was pretty horrifying at that age) and these days i even get postcards from Playboy Magazine every 6 months trying to get me to subscribe.
the story behind my name is that it was my great grandmother’s maiden name. it’s a dutch surname. my great grandmother’s family was from Pennsylvania before they moved down to North Carolina. i’m sure you’ve heard of “Pennsylvania Dutch.” my grandmother gave her mother’s maiden name to my mom as her middle name and she passed it down to me as my first name and that’s how my name found its way to me.
growing up i was tormented by the fact that i could never find trinkets with my name on them. no stickers, no key chains, no little teddy bears wearing t-shirts with “Kyler” across the chest. to make matters worse, my twin sister, Laura, could find anything she wanted with her name on it. i felt so left out, me and my weird-o name. i felt like a freak.
well this weekend i was redeemed. on my way from NYC to Pittsburgh i visited a little town off I-80 called…drumroll please…KYLERTOWN, PA!!! so what if i can’t get stickers with my name on them, i have a whole friggin town named after me so HA!
seriously it was a complete thrill for me to stand in front of the “Welcome to Kylertown, PA” sign. i took some photos but i was giggling so much that i look like a big dork in all of them. i put one up on my photo gallery in the “random photos” section along with photos of the interstate sign for the Kylertown exit, the Kylertown post office sign and even a Kylertown truck plaza. the best part is, the main street in Kylertown is called “Rolling Stone Rd”!!! (when i’m famous maybe i’ll live on Rolling Stone Rd in Kylertown!)
since my little pilgrimage, i did some research on my town. it’s a pretty small town. like 446 people small. and out of that like 15 of them have the last name Kyler! can you imagine living in a town named after your last name? (kinda like if i ever lived in England 
) i wonder if the town got started cause the Kyler family couldn’t get along with the rest of the dutch settlers so they said screw it and went and formed their own town and named it after themselves. that’s what i woulda done. 
“dunnnhduhduh…won’t you take me to…dunnnhduhduh…Kylertown”
k
ps in other funny road sign news…if you’re ever driving on 278-W in New York (aka the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway or the BQE), keep your eye out for a sign as you leave Queens and enter Brooklyn that says: “Entering Brooklyn: Believe the Hype”. the first time i saw that i cracked up and it was a great welcome home from touring back when i lived in Brooklyn. just this past weekend i was on tour driving on the BQE on my way out of Brooklyn and saw a new sign on the other side of Brooklyn that i think is my fave road sign ever: “Leaving Brooklyn: Fugghedabahtit”.
pps while i was on tour my roommate took one of those Playboy subscription postcards that came in my name and replied to it so now there are Playboy magazines arriving with my name on them. all thanks to my weird name. great.