A story in this morning's Chronicle caught my eye. It was about the town formerly known as Clark, Texas. Seems they have been swayed by the Dish satellite TV network, to rename their little hamlet of 125 folks in 55 houses,
"Dish, Texas". In payment, each household receives ten years of the Dish Network's service and equipment for free. I'll not dwell on the pros and cons of such an arrangement, but rather the phenomenon and it's ramifications.

First off, they were not the first place to accept such an offer. In addition, there have been cities who rejected a similiar offer. To my surprise after all these years of passing thru and wondering, but never bothering to ask (which is not at all like me), I discovered that that is how the former town of Hot Springs, N.M., has come to be known as Truth or Consequences, N.M.

There are other examples of, and reasons for towns changing names for cash, you should check out the story.

The change that didn't fly in the face of one city council, was a change to "Got Milk?", hmmm.

That makes me wonder, had ABC taken that approach to advertising a couple of years ago, and if some lonely little town out on I-20 west of Abilene had changed it's name to "Desperate Housewives",Texas, you reckon that might have made business at the truck stops there spike a bit, and maybe have created a fledgling tourist industry there? Possibly even a bit of a population growth spurt?

There must be a world of possibilities out there with this little trend!