There were a number of things I didn't particularly care for when we lived in Lake Carolina. Cookie-cutter houses, neighborhood gossip, and community by-laws, to name a few. But perhaps my biggest beef was with the silly street names.
There were street names designed to make you believe you were living near the beach:
Harborside Lane...Nautique Circle...Shoreline Drive...Mariner's Cove Drive...Windjammer Lane...Sailing Club Drive...Penninsula Way...Marsh Pointe Drive (I particularly love the use of a fancy silent-e).
There were other street names designed to make you think this was some sort of elite community:
Ashton Hill Drive...Laurel Bluff Court...Avington Lane...Wescott Place...Austree Drive...Granbury Lane
I think you could throw the words Way, Court, Place, or Lane on just about anything and make it sound uppity.
"After you pass through the security gate you'll want to make a right turn on Weepy Colon Court and then an immediate left on Dingleberry Lane. It's a cobblestone. You'll probably see our Porsche parked out front."
When we were in Lake Carolina we lived on Berkeley Ridge Drive. The fact that we were neither on a ridge or anywhere near California obviously escaped the developers. However, as pompous as the street name was what bothered me even more was having to constantly spell Berkeley for everyone. Two e's, not one.
I guess you at least have to give credit to the developers in Lake Carolina for using a bit of imagination. My sister-in-law lives in a St. Louis neighborhood that consists of streets named Clear Meadows, Cool Meadows, Dear Meadows, High Meadows, Lea Meadows, and Shady Meadows. And as you can probably guess...there's no meadow to be found anywhere near this collection of single-story ranches.
Our new address is on Stone Ridge Court. A bit pretentious sounding, perhaps, but at least there are thousands of stones and it's actually located on a ridge. If not modest, it's at least accurate.
On my way to the recycle center yesterday I found myself paying close attention to the names of the streets I passed along the way. They weren't suburb names. No, they sounded like names you'd expect to find in the country...
Broom Mill
Cowhorn
Winesap
Peach
Hungry Hollow
Gum Springs
Roddy
Old Ruff
These are names with character - and probably a story.
But of all the roads I passed, my favorite by far was a gravel road winding away from US 331 into a stand of trees. It's name?
Devil's Racetrack
Now, how cool would it be to have that printed on your driver's license?
I agree. As though the more elite sounding the name, the higher the property value. It seems the older the homesteads, the planer the names. I grew up on Adams Street. Sandwiched between Washington and Jefferson. My school was on Harrison. The roads at the end of my block were 56th Ave. and 58th Ave. My address was 5600 Adams. Now that was a system. My best friend lived on 47th and Lincoln. Even if you had never been there before, you could get there with your eyes mostly closed (if you knew something about the order of the presidents).
ReplyDeleteBut wouldn't it be cool to move onto property that didn't yet have a name? What if you could name the road yourself? Think of the possibilities. You could go for the self-depricating OLD FART WAY, or SIMPLETON STREET.
How would you like to live on BUTT HOLE ROAD (named after a communal water butt - which I haven't a clue about what that means), or PSYCHO PATH (which I actually saw in Traverse City Michigan), or DIVORCE CT (in Highlands, PA)?
The Devil's Racetrack?! I would love to know that story.