What It Doesn’t Mean
Despite persistent online rumors and myths, the phrase doesn’t have anything to do with huckle bearers, pallbearers or carrying someone’s casket. It sounds cool and is slightly more interesting than the term’s actual meaning, but there isn’t any real evidence to back it up.
And if you use that meaning in the context of the above examples, it makes even less sense. Do you want the best groceries in town? We’ll be your pallbearers!
Val Kilmer even addressed the rumor in his book, I’m Your Huckleberry: A Memoir.
“By the way, despite some fans’ contention that in the 1800s the handles of caskets were called huckles and thus word huckle bearer was a term for pall bearer, I do not say, ‘I’m your huckle bearer.’ I say, ‘I’m your huckleberry,’ connotating, ‘I’m your man. You’ve met your match.'”
The screenplay’s text says huckleberry, Kilmer named his book after the line, and countless newspaper articles use the phrase in the same context. So we can all be the huckle bearers of this rumor and put it in the ground for good.
One of many old newspaper examples, this one from 1873, look at the middle ad for flour.
