Among its other attractions. New Orleans (where I happen to be at this moment of writing) is a city blessed with street and avenue names that are both unusual, particular to the city, and glorious: Basin, Burgundy (accent on the gund), Calliope (three syllables), Desire, Dryades, Felicity, Frenchmen, Poydras, Prytania, Rampart, and of course Tchoupitoulas. Just a few to get the conversation started.
These names are elegant. No wonder I suffer from a desperate inferiority complex concerning the names of the streets on which I've lived. East 9th Street, West 91 Street, 9th Street, 10th Street. Designations without character -- gray and boring. No resonance, no power. Bland.
Of course it hasn't been all bad: I once lived for a transitory summer (1961) on Snyder Hill Road -- a semi-poetic name that gestures at rurality.
I knew a guy who was raised on Old Oaken Bucket Road. I was initially dazzled -- until I learned that his neighbors had petitioned the city for a name change -- his street had formerly been called Third Avenue or Smith Road or something of that ilk. So it was not a real name -- it was pseudo-historical kitsch. What suburban pretension! What a comedown! I'd have blushed with embarrassment if I had to admit that I lived on Old Oaken Bucket Road. It's almost as bad as Christmas Tree Drive (a real street in Boulder, Colorado, to the everlasting disgrace, nomenclature-wise, of our city).
But now in this latter end of my life, I've achieved onomastic eminence. For half the year I live on Walnut Street, a name that is the epitome of small city authenticity (though it would be slightly better if there were an actual walnut tree anywhere nearby). And of summers I'm at Hackett Hill Road, which is just perfectly titled, and even more perfect because there are numerous Hacketts in our local cemetery and because, fifty years ago, I met aged Edna Hackett, the last survivor of the family that gave its name to hill and road.
Comments