We live at the southeastern corner of this crossroads. I took the picture from Pleasant Street, which is the official street we live on, looking at the signs for (from left to right) Ryan Road, Frost Hill Road, and Bixby Street.
The more I think about this, the more confused I get. For one thing, even after forty years of teaching ESL, I'm not sure what differentiates a road from a street.
For another, this picture sums up just why it is that people from, say Utah just to pick a wild example, get so confused in New England. Four roads (streets?) meet at an otherwise uninteresting point, and instead of road A crossing road B and continuing to be road A, it suddenly becomes road C. Why?
Then there's the question of the names themselves. Pleasant St. is simply and appropriately named. Frost Hill Road is clear, except to the flatlanders who come around during leaf peeping season and want to know if this is the actual road that the poet lived on (someone actually asked me that once). But who were Bixby and Ryan, and what did they do to deserve the honor?
My big question, though, is why there are only three signposts at the corner. Even though Pleasant St. is the main road up the hill from the town, it doesn't rate a sign of its own.
Perhaps this is all some sort of philosophical metaphor. Here I am on this unlabeled (but pleasant) street, at a sudden crossroads in the middle of nowhere, facing cryptically named roads leading off -- where? Should I be thinking in terms of treatment options, lifestyle choices, or my immortal soul? I won't even get into the fact that one of the roads, but I won't tell you which, is a dead end.
Or maybe this is the place where the traditional New England jokes about lost flatlanders originated.
"Does it matter which road I take to get to Jaffrey?"
"Not to me, it don't."
3 comments:
Pack a lunch and follow the road that runs the truest
Over the years I've seen a lot of funny and peculiar signs. One that I remember from years back was a sign on a cleaners in NYC that was going out of business. That sign read:
"Last chance to remove your clothes."
A road is rural; a street is urban. Given that you live in a very small place that isn't really rural, but hardly qualifies as urban either, it's no wonder there is confusion. I know there are roads in urban areas, but I'll bet most of the names pre-date their urban character. (That's the pronouncement of the English major who grew up in the Midwest in both rural and urban settings--)
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