A Road by Any Other Name

Some time ago I wrote a post about my fascination with place names and road names, and I talked about some of the interesting names in this area. After further thought, I have come to the conclusion that something needs to be done about the names of some of the roads in Fannin County.

There are roads in this county with embarrassing names like Wunder Bear Ridge, Tee Pee Trail, Papa Bear Path, and The Forest Has Eyes Road. Names like these are inconsistent with the Southern Appalachian history, tradition and culture of this area. They sound like they were named by a sixteen year-old Valley Girl or a city-born wussy who was raised on Sesame Street and Barney the Friendly Dinosaur. You just know that the persons who named these roads were Yankees at heart.

Wunder Bear Ridge, Tee Pee Trail and Papa Bear Path are names that you find at Frontier Land or Dollywood or Wallyworld. They are not names that belong in an area where stout pioneer men and women braved countless privations to wrest a life from the primeval wilderness. (Yeah, I know that’s not exactly how it happened around here. What really happened is that the white man stole it from the Cherokees after they had wrested it from the wilderness, but you get my point. As Joseph Goebbels, the brilliant Nazi propagandist once said, never let the truth get in the way of your point.)

Imagine having to tell someone that you live on Papa Bear Path. The response is probably going to be, “Yeah, and who’s your neighbor—Little Red Riding Hood?” Mr. Greenjeans, Little Miss Muffet and Richard Simmons live on roads with names like Papa Bear Path.

Only a deeply disturbed person would name a road The Forrest Has Eyes Road. Talk about paranoia. Whoever named that road watched too many horror flics and needs a lengthy session with Dr. Phil. Why make your nightmare our nightmare? The next thing you know we’ll have Jack the Ripper Road, Freddy Krueger Drive and Texas Chainsaw Massacre Way here in Fannin County.

And then there is Elvis Presley Boulevard. It’s wrong at multiple levels. It can be stated categorically that there is not one road in Fannin County that deserves to be called a boulevard or, for that matter, an avenue. Moreover, boulevard and avenue sound French to me, and who wants that? Finally, while I am a great admirer of the musical legacy of Elvis Presley, his name does not belong on a road in Fannin County. He’s too modern, and he was never here. A tourist is going to know right away that Elvis Presley Boulevard was not named by one of the early pioneers to these parts. If we allow a road name like that, then we better be prepared for Englebert Humperdink Highway and Tiny Tim Terrace.

So what can be done about silly road names that detract from our heritage? I propose that the county create a new division called the Division of Appropriate Road Names. That’s DARN for short. DARN would be charged with the task of renaming existing roads which have been determined to have inappropriate names and vetoing any proposed road names that are inappropriate.

To prevent DARN from being accused of acting arbitrarily, it would have to adhere to definitive rules in deciding whether a name is appropriate or not. I have given this a lot of thought, and even though I have yet to formulate a complete set of rules, I do have some suggestions.

I think rule number one has to be that a road or street name cannot be cute. Unfortunately, this means that women and wimps cannot serve on the DART committee. Not to be sexist, but only women and male cheerleaders consider it acceptable for something to be described as cute. A manly man hates cuteness. In fact, the word is almost absent from a real man’s vocabulary. There are rare occasions when a man’s man will use the word, but this is only when he is at a loss for another word in a situation when the truth might be a little harsh. For example, show a real man an ugly baby, and he might describe the kid as cute to avoid saying something like, “Holy crap! What did you beat that kid with—an ugly stick?” Because of the tendency of women and wimps to find cuteness acceptable, DARN will have to be staffed exclusively by cranky old farts.

There needs to be a whole set of rules to determine if a road name is regionally and historically appropriate. For instance, a road name may include a person’s name only if the name sounds like it could have belonged to an original settler of the county. That effectively limits the list of acceptable names to those that are English, Scotch, Irish or German in origin. If you want to name your road La’Kisha Drive, Giuseppe Street, or Rodriquez Road you’re out of luck. Native American names are okay as long as they do not run afoul of rule number one. There is a road in Fannin County called Bear Walks Medicine Path. While it may be argued that the name is historically appropriate, it fails because it’s cute.

Of course, you need a rule that a road name must sound like it was named before 1875. So, for instance, Hoop Skirt Road might be acceptable, but Wonderlift Bra Road would not be.

There are certain words that are preemptively acceptable if used in a road name. Some of these are old, farm, church, creek, mill, gap, hollow, ridge, forge, grove, shady, pleasant, hill, branch, springs, pond and hickory. If you were to name your road Old Hickory Branch Church Gap Road, you would probably win a prize from the Fannin County Historical Society. Of course, when you pair any of these acceptable words with other words you could end up with an unacceptable road name like Hickory Dickory Dock Road, Old Bed Springs Road or Chia Pet Farm Road.

While we are on the subject, I think there should be a rule that roads must be called roads or streets. Avenues, circles, ways, courts, drives and boulevards are not allowed. I’m still up in the air about whether to allow paths, lanes, traces and trails. At the very least they are suspect and will be scrutinized closely. Roads that are paths, lanes, traces and trails tend to be cute and violate rule number one. For example, Fannin County has roads named Memory Lane, June Bug Lane, Dew Drop Lane and Dog Patch Lane. These names are too cute and have to go.

This is far from a complete list of the rules that must exist before DARN can do its work. Even though it may take several months to come up with a complete list of rules, I intend to persevere so that Fannin County can rid itself of silly, inappropriate road names.