A New Drive/Park Way

We had our driveway resurfaced yesterday. It was six years old and put in by the builder – it wasn’t a particularly good job to begin with, but six winters and summers had taken their toll and it was beginning to crack in spots, so it seemed like a good idea to get it done before it got worse – and cost more….

Of course the process got me to pondering about a few things….
I wonder where they came up with the term asphalt – after extensive research, I’m still not sure, but the origin of the word appears to be Greek – one source indicating it is from the Greek word, asphalia which means to give assurance. Another source that I like better says its origin is from the Greek word asphaltos, meaning secure. To tell you the truth, neither makes a lot of sense to me, but i wasn’t in any mood to pursue the origin any further.

Asphalt has been around almost forever. It occurs naturally in both asphalt lakes and in rock asphalt (a mixture of sand, limestone and asphalt.) The ancient Mesopotamians used it to waterproof temple baths and water tanks as a sealant to prevent leaks. The Phoenicians caulked the seams of their ships with asphalt. In the days of the Pharaohs, Egyptians used the material as mortar for rocks laid along the banks of the Nile to prevent erosion. I found one article that indicated that the infant Moses’ basket was waterproofed with asphalt.

The first recorded use of asphalt as a road-building material was in Babylon around 625 B.C. In 1870, the first true pavement in the U.S. made of asphalt was laid in Newark, N.J. During that same time frame, Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington was paved using 54,000 square yards of asphalt.

Of course, I couldn’t talk about our new driveway without wondering about the age old question of, why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways? Apparently Parkway wasn’t used to designate roads until the 1950’s and the term was used for roads that went through parks and people often drove on them just to tour the scenery… so – ‘way’ pretty much means ‘road.’ A driveway is a road that you drive on, even if you just drive from the street to your garage. And a parkway (originally) referred to a road through (or to) a park.

I remember when I was growing up, driveways were usually much longer than they are today. Houses set further back off the street and if people were fortunate enough to have a garage, it was usually at or near the back of their property. So then, you really could “drive” on your driveway.

Of course, you could chalk this nomenclature up to the English language – lots of things seem backward – like for some reason anything sent by ship is cargo and things sent by cars is a shipment.

No matter — when you come to visit us feel free to park in our (new) driveway.
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