Chase or Trace??

OK, my blog entries have been very dark of late.  Time for something a tad lighter. 

Today I was reminded that the apartment building in downtown Downers Grove, right across from the main train station, and its bus-loading lanes, is called:  Acadia on the Green.

Say what?  I see no green of even a mini-golf scope nearby.  At that moment  what I did see was a line of tanker cars rumbling by with "flammable" and "radiation" stickers prominently mounted on them. 

I used to teach about the difference between connotation and denotation in classes, often with the study of poetry, and we always had fun with car names, even occasionally pulling out the famous sequence of letters between an American poet and Ford Motor Company regarding naming a new car model.

So I am reminded of the usual marketing slime-ology that goes into naming the places where people will be asked to live, either by renting or buying there.  I will skip the absurdity of senior retirement home titles...waaaay too easy.  Lets think about  the category that,  of course,  includes Glen Garry and Glen Ross.

Now, let us pick a tree.  It should be a noble tree, a well-known tree, and not too weird (nix "Ginko").  Let's try "Birch".  Now let us see the gradations of name that connote who will live in a place with "birch" in its name.

Birch Heights or Birch Glen:  here we have the ordinary, where there will be diversity, and perhaps even riff raff

Birch Valley:  better, but valleys are low, and southerners will be reminded of who lives on the hill versus "down in the holler.."

Birch Hill:  better still, and of course we are UP on a hill, whether or not it actually exists.

Birch Hills:  Ahhh, many hills, and hence seclusion and discovery.  And who knows, the hills may be alive with the sounds....

Birch Terrace:  OK, but sort of apartmenty sounding.  Besides, terraces are made of hard-scape material, not cushy golf green grass.

Birch Woods:  Oooh, much better.  Living in a woods means trees, and everyone prefers trees over a developer's billiard-table-on-farmland.

Birch Chase:  now we are getting into the money.  People here are not merely in the hunt, they have perhaps won the chase for gold.  Thank goodness Chevy Chase is now mostly forgotten...

Birch Trace:  At last.  Nirvana. Not merely a Chase, but a Trace.  Here there is no "trace" of riff raff, and the only illegals are cleaning the homes and pools.

The Ponds at Birch Trace:  Yikes!  A whole new connotative Eden emerges, and possibilities are endless.  We have trees and ponds and a "trace."  Can life get better


I pause here, as any of my ex-students know damn well I will, to consider names that might, should, could, or oughta be:

The Barbed Wires of Birch Way
The Barks of Birch
The Terraces in the Promenade of Birch Woods
Birchya Can't Afford It Here

The mind spins out of control.  I welcome further suggestions.