Phinally Phinding Phantom Philomena

Philomena Drive looking towards Goforth or Bunton or whatever

As roads go, Goforth is a rather odd duck.

You can drive on Goforth from the northbound feeder road on I-35 until it dead ends at Bunton Road. But it doesn’t really end there. If you take a right on Bunton, you’re actually still on Goforth until you drive a little east of Lehman High School where it appears Goforth dead ends into itself once again. At that point, you can take a 90-degree left at the intersection of Goforth and Goforth and begin heading northeast there. At that juncture, Bunton re-emerges, as if it was hiding under Goforth during that one stretch. Goforth, meanwhile will dead end once again at Bebee Road,. But wait! If you turn right on Bebee, you’re still on Goforth heading southeast again, this time until Goforth becomes High Road. What happens to Goforth? Well, if you turn left to go north on Highway 157, you will discover you’re still on Goforth. Got all that?

But wait yet again! It’s about to get even more confusing! Go all the way back to that part of the beginning of the previous paragraph where I said Goforth "dead ends at Bunton Road." In a matter of just days, I’m guessing, it will no longer dead end there. When the barriers are ultimately removed, it will keep on going, all the way over to Kyle Parkway. But if Goforth is now the road that Bunton becomes at that juncture, what is the name of that road that keeps on going?

At present, dear friends, that’s the phantom Philomena Road I wrote about yesterday, that road I couldn’t locate on Google maps, that road I always called the "Goforth Extension," that road that city officials managed to shrewdly include as a freebie part of the 2013 road bond deal, that road the City Council might officially name something else, according to its agenda for Tuesday night’s meeting.

I have absolutely no statistical evidence to support this theory, but I’m willing to wager more crimes are solved, not by exhaustive detective work, but because the police received a tip from some citizen. And that, dear friends, is how I discovered where Philomena Road is located. A well-informed citizen, after reading what I wrote yesterday about Tuesday’s City Council meeting, called me last night and slipped me the information on Philomena Road’s location. This discovery did not come about because of relentless sleuthing on my part.

Now the question becomes what is going to be Philomena’s new name (as well as the supplementary question of where did the temporary name "Philomena" come from in the first place)? Keeping it Goforth Extension works for me. Or how about this: Renaming it Multiply so that corner where Goforth doglegs to the right can now be known as Goforth and … oh, never mind.