(Not Bono's) Streets With No Name

Among the assorted talents I take pride in (such as whittling, whistling, and whipping curds) is the ability to give clear directions. How many times have I been pulled to the phone at work to tell a lost would-be customer just where to go! So the other day, when a woman stopped me outside the gas station and asked for some directions, I swelled with self-satisfaction and told her reassuringly the way to go. She was much appreciative, but a funny thing happened in the midst of my display of geographic acumen: She mentioned a street name which was in the area she was going to and which I've been familiar with for thirty years. But, but, my gosh, for the life of me I couldn't quite remember just which one of the myriad streets in the area it was. Still, she seemed pleased with the help I had given her and drove off. I have no doubt she reached her destination with little problem.

But I started to wonder. I know my way around a lot of places in these parts, and can give pretty darn good directions to most of them, but I can't say I remember all of the street names. Is that strange? Just the other day I turned down a street I normally take to work (for more than a year now) and only then did I notice the street's name (which I'd tell you, but I can't remember it). Now if I were Herman Melville (one can dream), I could write ten pages about the philosophical significance of "knowing the way" without really knowing the nomenclature of the way. But I'm not Mr. Melville, and I have a plane to meet later today, so I'll spare us all. But just what does it all signify, that we live among and rush headlong on all sorts of routes we couldn't name if our lives depended on it? I'm thinking there's a Martha/Mary meaning to it all, but I haven't had enough coffee this morning to investigate further. Suffice it to say that U2 and their ur-philosopher Bono made a few bucks rambling on about some opaque, alleged spiritual place where the streets have no name, but for me the really interesting nut to crack is the fact that all around us are streets with no name; nonetheless they take us to where we're going, without much thought required on our part. Makes you think.

Similarly, getting back to a post of ten days ago, so many of those "everyday people" in our lives are equally familiar yet nameless. I was all excited to tell the sandwich guy from that post that I had made him www-famous. But I haven't seen him since he told me he couldn't complain (I hope being anonymously mentioned in this blog isn't an employment curse). I just know his first name. What's his last? What's the last name of the Fed Ex driver, Joel, I happily conversed with for years? What are all the names--first, last, nicked--of all those other great everyday people of my past? I really don't give a shit about street names or just which street in University Circle is Adelbert, but something in me wants to know the full names of all these friendly anonymous people I know and have known for years.

I don't know. I have no answers and don't even know what the right questions are. What's in a name? Plenty, if it's a person; not much if it's a place.