Cricket Lane

This is Dick Backus on Woods Hole Road with a story.

I used to live on what used to be called Stuart Lane, that little street in Woods Hole off of Quisset Avenue almost across from Buzzards Bay Avenue. One day somebody in Town Hall called up and said we had to change the name of the street. "There's a Stuart Lane in North Falmouth and there can't be two streets in town with the same name", they said.
" OK", I said, "but are there are more people on the North Falmouth street to be inconvenienced by a change than there are on the Woods Hole one?"

" No", said Town Hall. "Even fewer people live on the North Falmouth one"

" Oh", I said. "I suppose the North Falmouth street has had the name longer."

" No", said Town Hall. "Actually the Woods Hole one had the name first".

" Well, why do we have to change then" I said, a little exasperated.

" The name for the North Falmouth one is shown on the Town Engineer's map and the name for the Woods Hole one isn't," came the explanation, and with that we were given the opportunity of choosing a new name.

Years before, there'd been a dump down there, and Asa Wing and I thought Dump Lane would be a neat address, but neighbor Herman Ward, even though he's a poet, didn't think so and neither did Dot Elo. Finally, my 9-year old son David, said, "What about 'Cricket lane'?" And that's what it's been called ever since.