EDITORIAL: We All Like Ol’ Merle Just Fine, but ?: Highway 99 Deserves a New Name to Go Along With Much-Needed Facelift.
By The Fresno Bee, Calif.
Mar. 5–The other day, The Sacramento Bee editorialized about an appropriate name for Highway 99 through the Valley. They suggested — enthusiastically — that it be named the “Merle Haggard Highway.” Well, thanks — but no thanks.
Let’s make this clear: We yield to no one in our affection for Mr. Haggard, one of Bakersfield’s favorite sons — along with Buck Owens, another legendary country music star, and Frank Gifford, who is still married to Kathie Lee Gifford and played a little football many years ago.
No, Merle Haggard is an American genius, as a songwriter and performer. It’s just that we think our colleagues up there at our elder sister in Sacramento may have been puffing on that stuff ol’ Merle says no one uses in Muskogee, Okla. Or something.
Actually, the editorial page staff members at our younger sister, The Modesto Bee, were quicker off the mark. They roundly rejected Sacramento’s suggestion on Feb. 26, and offered a number of ideas of their own.
They suggested naming the route for their own favorite son, George Lucas, of “American Graffiti,”"Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” fame. Or perhaps “The Milky Way, ” to pay homage to all the dairy cows that now populate the Valley.
That’s fine — though we have to wonder what people in Modesto would really choose to name the highway. Modesto is, after all, a town whose minor league baseball team is called the “Nuts.”
On second thought, as a reference to a lot of the drivers on Highway 99 “¦ well, “Nuts Highway” might work just fine.
We’ve got some ideas of our own, of course.
How about the “William Saroyan Highway,” for the renowned writer whose vivid prose just drips the history and character of Fresno and the Valley? Never mind that he hated the idea of being memorialized in such a fashion. In Fresno, we blew past that objection a long time ago.
What about “Raisin Highway”? Or “Orchard Highway”?
“The Golden State Highway” — Interstate 5 to the west — is already taken. How about the “California Highway” for our local artery?
We could call it “The Poets Highway,” to honor the large number of fine poets and poetry lovers who call Fresno home.
Or maybe we could honor both Saroyan and Phil Levine, the renowned Fresno poet, by calling it the “Pulitzer Highway.”
What we don’t need is another highway named after a politician.
Maybe the best suggestion is to let the communities up and down Highway 99 choose their own names for their local stretches. Many do so already.
Highway 99 is a long roadway, and there are plenty of opportunities to celebrate all manner of people and things, whether historical, beloved or simply whimsical. Send us your ideas, and we’ll share them with everyone.
Most of all, what we’d really like to see is the “Wider, Smoother, Safer Highway.” Let’s not take our eyes off that ball.
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Copyright (c) 2006, The Fresno Bee, Calif.
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