Ihm Still Here

Originally posted Dec. 20, 2018 in FaceBlech.

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I’m old enough now to have begun “living the dream” and moved to sunny Florida, where I no longer have to shovel, rake, or mow. Every time I take a drive around here I pass dozens of gated communities. Each community has a name. When you tell someone where you live, you often give them the name of your community along with your actual address. I laugh when I see the names of some of them. Others leave me scratching my head in confusion. For example:

* Timber Creek, which has neither timber nor a creek anywhere nearby.

* Isles of Boca, which is, of course, completely landlocked.

* Harbour Green, consisting of concrete and houses nowhere near a harbor.

* Tides at Newport Bay, which is miles from the ocean so it’s not YET subject to tides - wait about 20 years, they say.

* Sherwood Forest - you mean Robin Hood has a condo?

* Coral Trace, in which surely there is no trace of coral anywhere except maybe as an end-table decoration.

* Whisper Trace, probably the nearest thing to “it’s not really there”. And what’s with all these “traces” anyway?

* Broken Sound — I’m concerned. Was this named for staccato gunshots? Or a body of water that has failed in some way?

* Isles at Hunter’s Run, where there have been no hunters for decades, no isles, and a low probability that any of the senior residents do any running.

* Hammock Reserve, evidently a place set aside to grow tree-borne beds.

* Snow Hill - are you kidding me?? This is Florida, remember?

* Mill Lake, where there never was a mill, and the so-called lake is a three foot deep pond.

* Waters Edge, which is, of course, at the edge of a five-foot-wide flood-control channel.

* Central Park: unhappy with living in Florida, they named the community nostalgically.

* Forest Hills - no forest, and flat as a kitchen counter. Also nostalgia-based.

* Patch Reef - is that a command?

* Waters Bend North, Waters Bend East - I guess it depends which way you’re looking.

One community is named Patios on the Park. To me this is nearest to the truth because nearly everyone has either a golf course or park to look at from the patio. Another is named Ashland, which is possibly another nostalgic reference, to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Flushing Meadow.

Now, why are so many communities named “Pointe” (pwant? pointy?)? The word “Point” is too unpretentious, I guess.

One developer here in South Florida has created a bunch of projects each named Valencia-something: Palms, Isles, Lakes, Cove, Reserve, Preserve... We seniors have enough memory problems already, and thanks to these names, I don’t know where some of my friends actually live.

But my all-time favorite community name is Journey’s End. Finally some truth in advertising: Florida is where you come to get old and die.

I used to live on Long Island, NY, in a community called East Northport, which was east of South Huntington. I had friends in West Islip, which was north of Islip. So apparently I have exchanged one kind of brain-bending name silliness for another.