I wasn’t able to afford to take a real trip this Spring Break, just like every other Spring Break ever. While my friends ventured out to Ocean City, Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia, I took a day trip down to Southern Maryland to visit my parents at their house on the lake. There may not have been a couples-only drunken beach obstacle course hosted by MTV and Tila Tequila, but I figured I could at least finagle a free lunch of some kind.

As my family and I made our way into the tiny fishing town for something to eat, we turned onto a small street called Carl’s Way. Carl’s Way, as in the Way that belongs to Carl. That was the first time I had seen an apostrophe in the name of a street, besides the short-lived Towson road named after Michael Phelps back when people still liked him. I didn’t know it was possible until just the other day, but afterwards I thought about how great it would be to have my own Way. One day, though, I’d like to move up to an Avenue and maybe eventually have my own Parkway or Boulevard. From there it wouldn’t be difficult to leverage my own neighborhood or suburb, and you can imagine how things might progress from there. Either way, having a Way would be a great launching pad to local fame and perhaps, eventually, national success.

Just as I was getting excited and making these grandiose plans in my head, an old, blue-collar fellow in a dirty jumpsuit rounded the corner. He walked slowly and underneath his worn hat brim, his eyes scanned the road in front of him.

“That must be Carl,” I thought. “Out keeping an eye on his Way.”

As we drove past Carl, he followed our car with his eyes and gave a solemn nod of approval, as if to say “You guys are alright,” with a hint of “Don’t try anything funny, ya hear?” The nod was so subtle you could barely see it. I guess he just didn’t have the energy anymore, or the will. I got the impression that keeping tabs on a Way for 40 years can be taxing on the soul.

Later on, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Carl’s day must be like. I thought about all the tourists he must meet and how all the locals must know him by name. I thought about all the trash he probably picks up and all the traffic lines he must repaint. I thought about all the skateboarding kids and jaywalking pedestrians that he probably yells at. I thought about where he might place his rocking chair so that he can sit and drink whiskey out of the bottle and not cringe at all when he swallows it. I thought about how he probably wears that jumpsuit just in case anyone’s car ever breaks down on his Way and he has to crawl under it and get to fixin’. I thought about how some county inspector in a suit and tie probably comes out a few times a year to make sure everything is in order, and how Carl probably doesn’t even get out of his rocking chair to greet him.

“I reckon everything’s alright here,” he’d probably say without looking at the inspector.

“Great, I just need you to sign this document then.”

Carl would sign it, then he’d spit out some chewing tobacco as a signal for the man to leave.

I imagined that Carl was like the sheriff of his small Way, and that one day his son Carl Jr. would take over for him. He had to name his son Carl for obvious reasons.

It wasn’t the glorious image that I had imagined when I first read his street sign. It turns out that having a road named after you isn’t all girls and parties and red carpets after all; it’s hard work and sacrifice. I wondered if there was still a place for people like Carl in our time of bureaucracy and traffic lights and the moving pictures, and if he had trouble keeping up. I hoped that Carl Jr. might be able to bring Carl’s Way into the digital age when the road became his.

Of course, maybe there is no Carl and the man I saw that day was just some guy in a jumpsuit. I’d like to think that that was really him, though, or at least that there was a Carl a long time ago who kept watch like I had imagined.