More Adventures in Selfimportantville, Part 2

Continued from yesterday

Another church I visited is located in CityF, which was is named for early settler Mr. John F. (Besides bequeathing his name to CityF, Mr. F. is most renowned for having been abducted by Native Americans and removed to Canada, an event tenuously linked to the start of the French and Indian War, but that's another story.)

The inhabitants of CityF clearly admire Mr. F. a great deal - so much so that they decided it wasn't enough to name the city after him; they then proceeded to name everything in the city after him as well. So you cruise into town on John F. Boulevard, possibly to visit friends who live on John F. Drive, John F. Street, or John F. Road. (Not that any of them would be labeled.) From there you might choose to dine at the John F. Restaurant or shoot pool at the John F. Sports Bar. On the other hand, you might need to run some errands at John F. Plaza, perhaps stopping by the John F. Pharmacy, the John F. Barber Shop, and the John F. Gas-n-Go. Or if you're in the market for a big-ticket item, you could drop by the John F. Furniture Gallery or John F. Auto Sales. I'm still on the lookout for John F. Congregational Church.

CityF might also be the birthplace of the phrase "the wrong side of the tracks," because there is in fact a set of rails rather auspiciously located. These days, though, neither side of the tracks in CityF is particularly desirable. It's not the kind of place where you'd want to be driving around after dark with a crummy set of directions. Oh no. But we can't always get what we want, right? Right.

When I first visited the CityF church, I was invited to a gathering of young adults at a home in CityF scheduled a few weeks afterward. Not yet savvy to the ways of Selfimportantville, I accepted directions from a Selfimportantvillain. Well. Naturally the directions involved no street names, landmarks, or anything else remotely useful, and they were wrong anyhow. (The direction giving gene was bred out of Selfimportantvillains in the late 17th century.) Also, it was January, a time of year when the sun sets on Selfimportantville at around 4:00 in the afternoon.

So, it didn’t take long, driving uncertainly around CityF in the dark, to realize that I wasn’t going to get where I was going. Abort mission. Problem, though – how do I get out of CityF? I tried to retrace my path, but it had been too convoluted to follow. So I drove around for some time on the wrong side of the tracks discovering John F. namesakes.

To be continued...