By Dick Wolfsie
The Wolfsies are building a new house.
That’s a misleading statement, because while my wife is making a lot of design decisions, I’m not doing anything that could remotely be called building. The new house is only a mile from our current house.
Mary Ellen saw another subdivision she really liked but it was in a different ZIP code, and she was afraid it would take me too long to find my way home.
We checked out lots of places during our house hunting. In one neighborhood, we saw a Commander Avenue, Commander Way, Commander Circle and Commander Court. Did they run out of nautical terms right after they named the development Commander Point? In another community, we saw a Sheila Road, a Shelly Court and a Shirley Way. These must have been the builder’s daughters. Or his ex-wives.
We presently live on a street with a long Native American name. My son was 10 before he could pronounce it and 17 before he could spell it, so I used to tell him that if he ever had to call 911 for me, it would be easiest just to drag me out to the highway. I told my wife I wanted to move to a wooded area where we could find a house on Elm or Maple Avenue. She found a great place on the corner of Sassafras and Eucalyptus, but we decided that was no improvement.
One thing we learned is to never ask for directions within a housing development. Even the people who live there are clueless. If you’re not actually looking for the street you’re presently on, couples out for a leisurely walk will stare at you and shrug. Even their Lhasa Apso will give you a quizzical look.
“Excuse me, can you tell me where Ernest Hemingway Drive is?”
“Uh, let’s see. This is Nathaniel Hawthorne Lane and the next left is Herman Melville Court. Or maybe it’s Henry Thoreau Terrace. Are you sure Ernest Hemingway Drive is around here? It may be over in the 20th century author section next door.”
The reason these people don’t know the names of any of their neighboring streets is because they don’t know people who live close by. All their friends live in classier places, maybe named after French writers or books, although I wouldn’t want to live on Les Miserables Drive.
Years ago, before cell phones and GPS, we missed a dinner party at the Habershams’ home after spending an hour trying to find it. We needed to get out of the subdivision before someone called the police to report suspicious loitering. We swallowed our pride and asked a guy walking his dog, “Excuse me, Sir, but can you tell me how to get to the main road? We’ve been driving around forever.”
“Sorry, but I can’t help you. I’ve only lived here a year. Would you like directions to the pool?”
“No, we don’t want to go to the pool. We want to go home. Do you have any idea how we get out of here?”
“OK, let’s try this: turn left on the street that’s named after that guy who wrote The Prince and the Pauper, then a right on the road named after the man who…what’s his name?…he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
We finally got home at 3 a.m. It was a frustrating but “novel” experience.
Television personality Dick Wolfsie writes this weekly column for the Daily Journal. Send comments to [email protected].
