Farfrompoopen Road
We were watching our local 5 p.m. news on Monday, Feb. 27, when the anchor reported on a contest to find the weirdest street names in America. She said she liked Farfrompoopen Road even though it came in third. My wife immediately said, “Isn’t that Kenneth’s road?” Then the anchor said the road was in Arkansas, and we knew it was indeed Kenneth’s road. Kenneth is my cousin who lived in the Detroit suburb of Livonia and now has a retirement home in Story, Ark.
After dinner I went to the computer to look for more information. I typed in Farfrompoopen on Google and found that there were about 11,000 entries. Now a week later there are nearly 80,000 Google entries for Farfrompoopen. I did not look them all up, but I noticed that a lot of them had Farfrompoopen Road in Tennessee, and some of them referred to Farfrompoopen Lane. An Associated Press story referred to Tennessee, and from there the error was perpetuated hundreds – perhaps thousands – of times.
The Web site www.thecarconnection.com (see below) reported on the contest sponsored by Mitsubishi Motors, and correctly referred to Farfrompoopen Road on Constipation Ridge in Story, Ark. But the Web site had at least one error in reporting that the intersection of Stroke and Acoma is in Lake Havasu, Wis. There is no town named Lake Havasu in Wisconsin. There is, however, a Lake Havasu City in Arizona, and Stroke Drive is near the golf course. Acoma is not “a coma” but is the name of an ancient Indian tribe.
My cousin is now is his 80s and has been retired for several years, When he first built his house in Arkansas, he had a rural route address. At some point the town went to street names (I think for fire number purposes), and his street, which is actually a private road to his house, had to have a name. He has a warped sense of humor, particularly in regard to bodily functions. So he named his road Farfrompoopen Road and decided that the road was how you get to Constipation Ridge. Who would have thought that his road name would come in “turd” – too bad it wasn’t No. 2.
The following is excerpted from The Car Connection’s story:
Street Names Contest Winners!
Going "Psycho" scores with readers and judges
By Paul A. Eisenstein
Presented by Mitsubishi Motors: Driven to Thrill
Apparently, a lot of you went nuts over TheCarConnection's Wild, Weird, and Wacky Street Names Contest, at least if we judge by the number of entries that flooded into our digital mailbox -- more than 2,500 arrived since the competition was launched last December. And though we officially closed things off on Feb. 1, we're still seeing a few stragglers offering up some last-minute oddities.
We've seen lots of Deer Licks, Bone Licks, and more than a few Yankees, Doodles and Dandies. There are a surprising number of This-a-ways and That-a-ways, as well as a few places around the country where you can Haviturway. We've seen the macabre, including Shades of Death Road and Bucket of Blood; the musical, like the intersection of Count and Basie; and the unpronounceable, Zzyzx Road.
Many of the names made us laugh. How can you not grin at the intersection of Ho and Hum? There were plenty of groaners, as well, like Farfrompoopen Road and the intersection of Stroke and Acoma in a retirement section of Lake Havasu, Wis.
You have to wonder who would want to live on a street named Broomrape. And clearly, we wouldn't be inclined to drop in on the folks on This Ain't It Road.
Politics can be expressed in a street sign, it seems. There's Nixon/Bluett, in Ann Arbor, Mich., and the corner of Clinton and Fidelity, in Houston. Actually the latter falls into two categories, for naughty names abound, at least in people's minds.
But some wild, weird, and wacky street names stand out from the rest, and we found that with rare exception, the top choices of TheCarConnection's editors and managers matched the result from last week's Reader's Poll. Combining the two tallies, here are our winners:
First Prize goes to Psycho Path, a mad little private lane in Traverse City, Mich. Second Prize was snagged by Divorce Court, a divisive boulevard in Heather Highlands, Pa. Third Prize goes to Farfrompoopen Road, which we're told is the only way to get to Story, Arkansas 's Constipation Ridge.
The top two runners-up are the intersection of Lonesome Road and Hardup Road, in Albany, Ga., and the intersection of Clinton and Fidelity, in Houston, Texas.
After dinner I went to the computer to look for more information. I typed in Farfrompoopen on Google and found that there were about 11,000 entries. Now a week later there are nearly 80,000 Google entries for Farfrompoopen. I did not look them all up, but I noticed that a lot of them had Farfrompoopen Road in Tennessee, and some of them referred to Farfrompoopen Lane. An Associated Press story referred to Tennessee, and from there the error was perpetuated hundreds – perhaps thousands – of times.
The Web site www.thecarconnection.com (see below) reported on the contest sponsored by Mitsubishi Motors, and correctly referred to Farfrompoopen Road on Constipation Ridge in Story, Ark. But the Web site had at least one error in reporting that the intersection of Stroke and Acoma is in Lake Havasu, Wis. There is no town named Lake Havasu in Wisconsin. There is, however, a Lake Havasu City in Arizona, and Stroke Drive is near the golf course. Acoma is not “a coma” but is the name of an ancient Indian tribe.
My cousin is now is his 80s and has been retired for several years, When he first built his house in Arkansas, he had a rural route address. At some point the town went to street names (I think for fire number purposes), and his street, which is actually a private road to his house, had to have a name. He has a warped sense of humor, particularly in regard to bodily functions. So he named his road Farfrompoopen Road and decided that the road was how you get to Constipation Ridge. Who would have thought that his road name would come in “turd” – too bad it wasn’t No. 2.
The following is excerpted from The Car Connection’s story:
Street Names Contest Winners!
Going "Psycho" scores with readers and judges
By Paul A. Eisenstein
Presented by Mitsubishi Motors: Driven to Thrill
Apparently, a lot of you went nuts over TheCarConnection's Wild, Weird, and Wacky Street Names Contest, at least if we judge by the number of entries that flooded into our digital mailbox -- more than 2,500 arrived since the competition was launched last December. And though we officially closed things off on Feb. 1, we're still seeing a few stragglers offering up some last-minute oddities.
We've seen lots of Deer Licks, Bone Licks, and more than a few Yankees, Doodles and Dandies. There are a surprising number of This-a-ways and That-a-ways, as well as a few places around the country where you can Haviturway. We've seen the macabre, including Shades of Death Road and Bucket of Blood; the musical, like the intersection of Count and Basie; and the unpronounceable, Zzyzx Road.
Many of the names made us laugh. How can you not grin at the intersection of Ho and Hum? There were plenty of groaners, as well, like Farfrompoopen Road and the intersection of Stroke and Acoma in a retirement section of Lake Havasu, Wis.
You have to wonder who would want to live on a street named Broomrape. And clearly, we wouldn't be inclined to drop in on the folks on This Ain't It Road.
Politics can be expressed in a street sign, it seems. There's Nixon/Bluett, in Ann Arbor, Mich., and the corner of Clinton and Fidelity, in Houston. Actually the latter falls into two categories, for naughty names abound, at least in people's minds.
But some wild, weird, and wacky street names stand out from the rest, and we found that with rare exception, the top choices of TheCarConnection's editors and managers matched the result from last week's Reader's Poll. Combining the two tallies, here are our winners:
First Prize goes to Psycho Path, a mad little private lane in Traverse City, Mich. Second Prize was snagged by Divorce Court, a divisive boulevard in Heather Highlands, Pa. Third Prize goes to Farfrompoopen Road, which we're told is the only way to get to Story, Arkansas 's Constipation Ridge.
The top two runners-up are the intersection of Lonesome Road and Hardup Road, in Albany, Ga., and the intersection of Clinton and Fidelity, in Houston, Texas.
posted by Norman Larson @ 7:23 AM
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