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| A Street with No Name
A Street with No Name
A Street with No Name
Last summer, I wrote about some of the pleasures and
peculiarities about living in the country. What I hadn`t come to appreciate at
the time was the frustration that would come from living on a street that has no
name. At first, the idea of having a nameless street seemed rather nice. In this
day and age where it seems even the most personal information about yourself
somehow ends up in the hands of marketers and government agencies, the thought
of not having a street to be identified with gave me a certain sense of
anonymity that I found comforting. However, as time goes by, I keep finding out
that not having a street name causes far more headaches than having a street
name does.
The problem first cropped up when I attempted to get the
electric service connected. It`s not all that easy telling someone to turn on
the electricity to your house when you can`t tell them where your house is. The
solution turned out to be matching the name of the previous occupants with the
house. I don`t know how the previous tenant ever described where they lived to
the electric company in the first place, but I don`t really care - at least I
have electricity.
After that incident with the electric company, I tried
in earnest to discover if the road did, indeed, have a name. What I discovered
was that yes, the street did have a name. Unfortunately, this "name" was
different depending on who you talked to. Some said it was the Kimball Hill
Road, named after the original settlers of the area. Others insisted it was the
Tibbits road, so named because half of the people who live on the road are from
the Tibbits` family. It`s also been called the Raleigh Road after the family
that built the house I`m living in. Recently, I heard it referred to as the
Hatch road - I don`t know the origin of that one. All in all, the consensus was
that there was no consensus, and any maps showing the road leave it unnamed.
I do have a mailing address, which consists of a rural
route number and a box number, but I`ve found that this is of little help when
someone is attempting to actually find the house. The first time I got UPS and
FedEx packages, I got calls from the drivers asking just where the heck I was
located. The same held true when I got oil delivered. When I ordered the oil, I
told them I lived on the Kimball Hill Road in hopes that this name would somehow
ring a bell, but it only confused them al the more. On the oil bill where the
dispatcher had typed directions to the house, the reference to the Kimball Hill
Road was scratched out and above it someone had written "end of road past
Tibbits` house."
Indeed, it appears that the reason the road has gone
this long without a name is because people in these small towns identify a house
not be where it is, but by who is living there. I live in the Raleigh house,
plain and simple. I was talking to a guy I know who grew up in the area some 20
years or so ago, and as I was attempting to describe where I was living, he
said, "Oh, so you live in the Raleigh house," and proceeded to describe every
other house on the road in terms of it`s occupants. In the course of 20 years,
it seems I was the only newcomer to the road.
When I went to vote this past November, I again faced
the "no name" problem. Since I had just moved to the area I had to register to
vote and, of course, they want to know where it is you live. Once again I had to
go through the complicated motions of describing where the street was in
relation to everything else and where the house was on the street. After a few
minutes of explaining that seemed to be getting me nowhere, the lady who was
registering me said, "Oh, you live on my street." And that is how I came to meet
Mrs. Tibbits.
As it turns out, Mrs. Tibbits is a very good lady to
know. Last month, during the ice storm, I made the mistake of attempting to
venture into work. After pulling out of my driveway, my vehicle decided to dance
down the ice-covered hill on my unnamed road without much regard for where I was
steering it. About half way down the hill, it finally came to a stop, the front
facing into a snow bank and the rest of the vehicle straddled across the road. I
wasn`t going anywhere until the sand truck showed up to tame the icy road
surface.
After a rather comical adventure of getting myself and
my dog back up the icy hill to the house, I decided to see if there was anyone I
could call to expedite the arrival of a sand truck. It was still early, so my
attempts at reaching anyone were futile. And besides, once I did reach someone,
I wouldn`t be able to tell them which road I was stuck on anyway - it doesn`t
have a name! About an hour and a half later, I did manage to get through to the
Jackson Town Hall, and, lo and behold, it was the aforementioned Mrs. Tibbits
who answered. Now there would be no problem explaining where I lived. Mrs.
Tibbits explained that the sand trucks had been out since 3 a.m. and there was
no way she could find out where they were now, but that she would make some
phone calls and see what she could do. Fifteen minutes later, I heard the sweet
rumble of the sand truck coming down the road. He not only sanded the road, but
he hooked up a tow chain and pulled me out of the snow bank. From now on, I
think I`ll just say I live on the Tibbits
road
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