Easy Street, Arizona

March 12, 2009 at 12:56 am (Uncategorized, Writers)

I do a lot at my job, which is in some ways a blessing.  At least I get the occasional chuckle out of what I see, even when I’m being yelled at for something beyond my control.

Part of what I do involves the preparation of mailing lists.  We’d had a large mailing for the AZ DOT last month, so my task yesterday was to remove several hundred addresses that had been returned by the post office and tagged as vacant.  Now, normally, I don’t read the lists, but because I had to locate each address in the list, I had no other option. Even so, I wasn’t paying much attention to the street names… at least until one particular street name caught my eye.

East Sittin Pretty Path.

Of course, I had to show everyone in the shop and when I was done, I went back to my task.  And found more.  Ones that were equally bizarre and some that were just downright stupid.

It made me wonder just what these people were thinking.  Did these community planners sit around a table, pulling random names out of a hat when it came time to name the streets?  Apparently so.  Just take a look at some of the gems they came up with for this community…

Some were pretty standard, scenery-inspired names:  Summit View Drive,  Pinnacle Pass Loop,  Sable Way, Sunrise Vista, Sunset Court, Granite Peaks, Summit View, Autumn Sage Street, Pleasant View Drive, Overlook Drive, Plateau Ridge Road (isn’t that a contridiction?).

There were those named after animals, too:  Sleepy Owl Way, Coyote Springs Road, Ringtail Drive, Lost Horse Circle, Wildcat Way, Impala Drive, Gazelle Road (last I checked, impalas and gazelles weren’t in Arizona).

Spanish words (surprisingly not as many here as in California): Saluda Avenue, Siesta Sunset Lane, Tierra Buena Lane, Gato de Luna (hahaha Moon Cat?), Mesteno Road (which, by the way, remains untranslated).

Then there are the hokey desert/western theme streets that are probably in every city and town in the Southwest: Painted Wagon Path, Dusty Trail Way, Gentle Winds Road, Prickly Pear Path, Brilliant Sky Way, Bramble Berry Lane, Big Star Trail, Trigger Road, Palomino Lane, Circle Wagons Way, Buckshot Road, Goldmine Way, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Last, of course, are the ones that made me snort, and not in a ha-ha-funny sort of way.  These are what make me wonder about the people who name our streets…

From the plain dumb- Short Walk Way, Paradise Found Trail, Pretty Penny Path, Trottin Down Road, Esteem Way (did they run out of words?)

To just outright stupid: Easy Street, Far Away Place, Dawn to Milky Way, Out of the Way Place, Winners Circle,  Penny Lane, Memory Lane.

Really?  Seriously, developers?  Far Away Place?  Memory Lane?  Really? Come on… really?

If I put any of those street names in a novel, an agent would chortle and demand I change them to real street names.  Of course, I could just send them a map of Prescott Valley and let them see for themselves that someone really does live on Easy Street, Arizona.