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Namesake road just might confuse pizza-delivery man
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It all started a few years back when a friend of mine called to tell me that he bought 7,000 acres of land in Crescent, Ga.

“Don’t you live down around that way?” he asked.

“I live in the suburbs of Crescent,” I replied, trying not to sound too much like a hick. “I’m from Belleville Bluff. That’s kinda like Beverley Hills is to Los Angeles.”

My friend said he planned to develop his land and make it a regular utopia with moving sidewalks like Disneyland. He told me that he was laying out the plans for his infrastructure — roads, fire hydrants and bus stops. I’m relatively sure that green lights soon will follow. I seriously doubt that he’ll need red and yellow lights because only two cars a month go down through that area, but I figured I wouldn’t spoil his dream.

“I want to name the roads after prominent McIntosh Countians,” he said. “Do you know any?”

Well, I told him that I knew Pernell Dupree and two or three lawmen, but I wasn’t sure I would name any roads after them. We spoke a few more minutes about the Dawgs and the Falcons and how many fish I had caught in my life, and then we said goodbye.

I had forgotten about that call until a few years later when I visited Bubba’s Quick Stop for lunch. Bubba Jr. said to me, “I ain’t know you had no road.”

“What?” I asked.

“I live on the corner of Highway 99 and yo road,” he said. I scratched my head and wondered what he was talking about. You see, when I order food, he will say things like, “What kind of chicken you want, the foot or the chest?”

“No, I want a wing and a short thigh.”

“Oh, you want an arm and a hip?”

Bubba went on to tell me that some developer named a road after me.

“I live on the corner of it,” he said again.

Last week, I was driving around and, lo and behold, there it was — a pole with a blue sign bearing my name: Vic Waters Road.

My problem is my street sign is blue, and every other street sign I’ve ever seen is green. Now, does this mean that my street isn’t recognized by Danny the UPS driver as a valid street? Could it be that he still considers it a dirt road that you can’t drive down if it has rained in the past six months?

I don’t know the reason, but I plan to find out because I live five miles away from the road named after me, and I’m afraid that if I have to call an emergency service — such as an ambulance, a fire truck or a pizza-delivery man — they might get somewhat discombobulated. I’d hate it if they were running up and down Bubba’s road looking for me while I was dying in Belleville Bluff from pizza withdrawal.

I asked Bubba if he would like to go to a county-commission meeting with me and request that they change the road name to Bubba Junior’s Boulevard. He said he didn’t want anybody to know what road he lived on unless the road was a paved four-lane with landscaping in the median.

If anybody asks you directions to Bubba’s house, just tell them to go to Vic Waters Road, and if they happen to find me, I’ll tell them where Bubba Jr. lives.

It was a much simpler time when we all had the same address: Route 1, Bubbaville, Ga.

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