For the clarity of future entries, let's discuss the names of nursing homes, and the way they could not be any more cliched or ridiculous. Let's review the pile of forest-green folders I have collected from various facilites, all showcasing the most crass and fawning attempts to project security, dignity, reliability, and fancy-pantsness.
"Pleasant," "Golden," "Heritage," "Granite," "Presidential."
"Hills," "Oaks," "Manor," "Ledges," "View."
Pick one of each, slap "Center" or "Home" on the end, and there you have a name for your nursing home. Don't, whatever you do, call it a nursing home or use words like "Elderly" or "Clinic." The most important thing is to come up with a phrase that reassures the person writing the checks and doing the complaining, especially when half your clients - oops, residents - can't remember where the hell they are anyway.
I think I'll just call them all Soothing Image Center - so much easier, so much more to the point.
Posted by hilatron at September 27, 2004 06:34 PM | TrackBackWell, we could go for stark honesty, I suppose. But who's going to park their loved one in the Home for the Appalled? The Warehouse for the Despairing, Disabled, and Depressed? The Institution for the Dotty and Gaga?
Or the even starker honesty of Center for the Relief of Extreme Family Inconvenience?
Or perhaps we could steer toward the poetic: Eternity's Waiting Room. Haven for the Bemused.
The fact is, the names don't matter. The reality does. And that sucks.
Posted by: Doombot at September 27, 2004 08:04 PMBTW, you forgot to include in your first list:
Fair, Sunset, Morning, Brookside, Rolling
And from your second:
Village, Valley, Wood, Haven, and Shores
Mix 'n' Match.
Posted by: Doombot at September 27, 2004 08:12 PMDottie lives (during the week) in a nursing home called Windsor Place, which is located on Windsor Way. At first glance this makes no sense, because Windsor Way is really just a driveway that leads only to Windsor Place. There's no reason why its address shouldn't be on the main street.
Except that the main street is Cemetery Lane.
Though not a nursing home—even if there was a lot of nursing of the completely botched egos/personalities/psyches of the local adolescents—my high school was on a similarly unnecessary pseudo-street. The driveway in front of the school, which was essentially the loop around which the buses pulled up each morning and afternoon, was named Tartan Way. The address for the school was, of course, 1 Tartan Way. What a completely useless addition to the local map.
Posted by: Josh at September 28, 2004 01:40 AMmy bubby lived in a jewish old folks' home called golden acres. it was a fright.
Posted by: jenni at October 6, 2004 06:05 PM