CBQ#324

 Can you remember the address of one of your childhood homes?

         I lived at only one address for the majority of my life.  Just so happens the home where I spent my childhood is also the same as the one my mom had to leave when we put her in assisted living.  She, herself, had lived in that home for over 50 years.  

As I mentioned in this post the streets in Salt Lake are numbered around the temple.  We lived in a non-incorporated area.  Our street number was 6850 South which apparently some neighbors knew as the name “Twin Peaks Drive” though I remember mom telling me she knew of only one family who addressed their mail with the “Twin Peaks” caption.  6850 is going to be so much easier to find than “Twin Peaks”. 

Twenty or thirty years later we were incorporated into the city. New street signs were installed all over the neighborhood.  Our street was marked “6850 South” – it was right after that installation that all business computers received the message that “this landline belongs to a resident living on “Twin Peaks Street” – not the “Drive” that I had grown up with.

It was frustrating ordering things and having the orders delayed because drivers could not find “Twin Peaks” anything.  Oh, duh, city.  If you’re going to enter that street into the computers as Twin Peaks, than why not mark the street itself as "Twin Peaks" instead of 6850 South?  We would tell people “It is 6850 – there is no sign anywhere indicating that it is Twin Peaks.  PLEASE RELATE THIS INFORMATION TO YOUR DRIVERS.  It seldom ever got related. Whenever the drivers did finally show, they were even more frustrated about it than we were.

 

 

 

 

Utah Addresses

I think most counties in Utah use a numbering system surrounding their “main street” I don’t actually know what the focal point is in Logan or Provo for example, but I do know that Temple Square is the central point in Salt Lake city and its surrounding areas. 

Surrounding Temple Square are four streets called South Temple, West Temple, North Temple and Main Street.  Each street is numbered thereafter according to whatever direction – but starting in the three digits. 

 

 For example 1^st north is also 100 north.  I know, it’s confusing for those who don’t drive it everyday, but for those of us who live here, it is what it is. So if I grew up on 311 E 7980 S, I would be approximately 80 blocks south of the temple and a little over 3 blocks east.

My mom grew up in San Francisco but still had family in Utah.  She used to feel sorry for children in Utah having to learn a difficult address like 2530 S 500 E or 1575 W 1000 N.  It wasn’t until after she moved to Utah that she found that it was easier to find an address based upon the number.  And for the most part, it is.

Some streets have names.  Our 100 east is more commonly referred to as State Street.  I don’t know if it was ever called 100 East or if residents of Salt Lake even know it as 100 East.  There was a time in history that State Street actually went from the capitol of Salt Lake to the county seat in St. George.

 But with the freeway system and highways and new growth, State Street has been broken up into pieces and so you may still find parts of it in other counties, but I think the longest stretch is from the capitol building to Sandy or Draper.  There are parts of it in Provo, American Fork, Fountain Green and St. George for instance – but they are all relatively short in comparison.  They are all really part of the same street – it just doesn’t lead the entire distance as it had over a century ago.

I grew up on the east side of State Street.  I lived in a house marked with an odd number.  We lived on the north side of the street.  I think it’s interesting that I am now living in a house marked with an even number and I am still on the north side – but I live west of State Street and Main and I think the numbering reverses somewhere (the odds and evens are on the opposite sides)

And then there are the occasional afterthoughts – such as a clinic I was trying to find in Sandy.  I was looking for the odd number on the opposite side of the street as my brother and sister-in-law live as they are at an even number – but it turned out it was on the same side.  Maybe that’s where the odd and even numbers change hands.

It’s important to have the right directions assigned to house and street.  If you are looking for 310 W 7930 S and you mix it up and up in 310 S 7930 W, you are looking in the wrong place!  You are way off. 

 

And then there’s a friend of the family whose house number was something like 1831 and yet his neighbors to either side were something like 1927 and 1943.  I often wondered how in the world they were able to get their mail.  So there are definite flaws. But except for those occasional rarities, I rather like using our numbering system.  I prefer the GPS of course – but I don’t remember that existing before this century. 

The Wonderful, Fabulous, Miraculous GPS (Global positioning system)

          For those of us who are directionally challenged, the GPS is the best device ever!

          Roland had won a GPS in a contest through his work.  It was about a week or two before we had gone to another state to see his family over a year ago.

          Roland makes jokes that Jenna must have been injected with a phonographic needle when she’d receive her shots.  It took her a while before she started talking, but once she got it, she hasn’t shut up..

Jenna would start talking at the same time the GPS would vocalize directions.  Jenna became annoyed and said, “Gosh, she’s bossy!”

This last time we had gone, I was fidgeting for something else but hit the GPS in error.  Roland looked at me rather puzzled and asked what the GPS had said.  “Go 108 miles and turn left” 

Oh, thank you for the heads up!

          Randy wants a GPS with a sense of humor.  “You have just missed your turn!  Just kidding”

         

          Lately I have had a couple of problems with getting the right information however.  Somehow the GPS thinks I’m in a location where I am really not.  For instance, I asked it to find a credit union near my mom’s house.  The nearest locations it gave me were not “near” at all.  And the GPS can’t tell you how much construction will be in said path to said destination. 

          I like that it tells you the speed limit and lets you know what speed limit is being driven.  At least ours does.

          For the most part it is the most awesome thing to have.  What a great invention!