A Road By Any Other Name

Change creeps slowly into the crenellated hills that make up our neighborhood.  Like the winding path of an intermittent stream, the edges of old banks are torn away and new ones are formed farther down stream, without much notice from the traffic that flows by.  The most visible changes to regular travelers along these roads are seasonal and immutable.  Creeks swell in the spring and dry up in the summer; the color of leaves creep along the spectrum, giving us a clue as to what the weather is really like beyond our windshield; and every five years or so, PennDot throws some black, gooey stuff into the holes we’ve learned to avoid through a sixth sense that is developed only by driving on roads too narrow to accommodate more than one lane of traffic.  (Passing an oncoming milk truck or school bus is a transcendent experience that makes belief in a superior being a certainty in this part of the county.  This may be why we have so many churches around here.  These outposts of God give the weary, neurotic traveler a chance to stop and give thanks for being spared yet another intimate encounter with a dual wheeled axle.)

Real changes are a distraction, and probably the main reason for the steady crop of up rooted guardrails that grace the landscape.  That’s why I nearly wound up in the Aughwick the other day as I crossed the bridge.  Planted squarely at the intersection of 475 and our own nameless road, was a street sign.  We’d heard rumors for some years that every road in the county would soon have a name, giving even strangers, foolhardy enough to take a shortcut between the turnpike and US Rt. 22, the feeling that they were someplace.  Nameless intersections can cause severe trauma to certain city dwellers who have been visually co-dependent on green street signs since childhood.  We’ve actually seen instances of unwary travelers babbling incoherently at an unmarked intersection, struck dumb with a spontaneous case of Sign Deficit Syndrome (SDS.)  Many of these poor saps are often found within feet of their final destination, wrapped only in shreds of an outdated Rand  McNally Atlas and chanting over and over again, “God, give me a sign, give me a sign.”  That’s why we don’t invite anyone to our house unless they can navigate by landmarks.  We don’t want to be responsible for committing any of our traveling disabled friends to an early retirement in a halfway house for the sign addicted.

We’d almost given up hope that our road would actually be named.  Even in remote regions of the county, like Blairs Mills and Richvale, signs had been erected in the early years of this new craze of naming roads.  We were getting the distinct impression that someone had deliberately erased any official trace of this part of the county from the plat maps.  Of course, we had mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, it gave us an excuse not to invite certain people to our house, and imbued our backwoods demesne with the air mystery befitting longed for mythical kingdoms like Atlantis.  On the other hand… Well, on the other hand, is there really a good reason to have street signs when you know the state is not about to break their solid record of benign neglect?  The greatest advantage, I suppose, is that we’ll now be able to give tellers at the Ames shopping plaza, in Huntingdon, a street address when we purchase something with a check.  My wife has been rebuffed a number of times by arrogant young coquettes, who refuse to believe we come from someplace that doesn’t name their roads.  You can tell from the incredulous stare that escapes the overly made and severely pierced face, that the teller is wondering what type of squalor you must live in if your license doesn’t have a proper street address.

At least we don’t have to suffer that sort of humiliation anymore.  Now we can boldly proclaim at the checkout line that we live on Elliott’s Run Road.  We can even turn to the person behind us in line and have a friendly chat about how wonderful this new invention of road naming is, without the guilty feeling that you’re one of the pariah who doesn’t have a name attached to the macadam at the end of your driveway.

Elliott’s Run is a fine name.  It’s a suitable name for the road that follows the meandering of its namesake creek.  But the name that rubs me a bit raw, and was the cause of my near miss at the bridge, is Maddensville Pike.  The grandiose term “pike” might have been appropriate at the turn of the century, even though it was no more than a dirt path.  But, today, its general state of disrepair belies its rank as pike.  (When I think of a pike, Baltimore Pike, which runs from Philadelphia to Baltimore, comes to mind.  This is a road where left-hand turns are preceded with the recitation of a full rosary.)  A more appropriate name might be the Bud Shuster Cow Path.  This name would retain some measure of status, from the powerful Transportation Committee chairman’s well known reputation; but it would also reflect the reality that you’re going to need a wheel alignment every time you travel between Orbisonia and Maddensville.  But who am I to complain about something that has absolutely no practical effect on my life.  The roads might be a mess down here, but I harbor the secret hope that it keeps the riffraff out.  Or maybe it keeps the riffraff in and that’s why we’ll never have decent roads.  Labeling anything in this part of the world, including roads, doesn’t always tell you where you stand.

[Since this writing, most of the street signs have been stolen in spite of repeated attempts to re-post them. The ones that are left are invariably misspelled, which makes navigating this part of the world a fun filled adventure.]