From time to time I listen to the traffic reports in Chicago and smile because I no longer have to cope with them. It was during one of these forty-second spots that a reporter referred to the Reagan Expressway and I marveled that an entire expressway had been built and named since Earl and I moved away four years ago.
Then I realized my error. A new expressway hadn’t been built; an old one had simply been renamed, probably in honor of former President Reagan who grew up in Dixon, Illinois, a couple hundred miles down the road from Chi-town.
This isn’t the first time a local highway or a building or a street has been renamed. When I lived in Chicago the first time, the main East-West highway was called the Congress. When I moved back it was called the Eisenhower, and if I referred to it as the Congress blank stares greeted me. Today it would probably confuse one’s GPS too.
I think the renaming of public thoroughfares and monuments is downright silly. It insults the original person or organization and is a rather backhanded compliment to the new person or organization. Even though I’m not a Republican, I don’t object to honoring people, like Reagan or Eisenhower; but why not wait until a new edifice or street or highway is built and name it in their memory? Wouldn’t that mean more than simply recycling something that once belonged to someone else’s name?
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