I visited your site and would have responded there except I never create new blog IDs/passwords and all that yada yada because I already have too many passwords to remember.

Anyway, I heartily agree about the arbitrariness of place names given to new developments. The examples you cite are indeed about as tacky and phony as they get — with one big exception.

I grew up in Cedar Canyons. I recently moved back there. Cedar Creek, Cedar Creek Township and Cedar Canyons all take their name from the first pioneer inhabitants who arrived in the 1830s, not some philistine real estate developer.

There once were dense stands of cedar there until farmers eviscerated most of it. And as for the Canyons, while they’re not of the California variety, they are absolutely uncharacteristic of the rest of Allen County. And mostly unknown. To see them you must walk deep into the Vandolah Nature Preserve, which I suggest you do because it’s quite lovely. It looks like southern Indiana.

It’s too bad more thought doesn’t go into naming things around here. Another prime example is Oak Something-or-Other — such a nothing name I can’t remember it even though I pass it every day — built on the site of the former Robinson Park, a nineteenth century amusement park that figures significantly in local history.

Watersong. Eagle Creek. These are no doubt consumer focus-grouped and trademarked names/logos that can be found in numerous American cities, not just Fort Wayne.

I was always baffled why they needed a lavish new press, just at the dawn of the no-more-presses era, but then, you know what my opinion is worth.

http://www.applecidercentury.com/index.html

The driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and struck Uncle Dan head on. He endured daily surgeries for a week and finally left the hospital for a nursing home three weeks ago. The active members of his entire family choose where to share the road very cautiously if they haven’t given up their road bikes entirely. I barely know the guy and am still very upset about his accident.

Isn’t that stuff about Blackwater exactly how you imagined those guys to be? It’s a crappy action movie within what was supposed to be a crappy heroic war movie.

As for crazy drivers, I see the same here on I-95 everyday. There is a half mile stretch near my office exit that must have idiot magnets on both side since the guard rails are down every week. I always blame the Rhode Island and Massachusetts drivers going home from the casinos but I guess there are some local idiots too.