Annex #atozchallenge

A to Z Challenge 2 Minutes

Welcome to Day 1 of the 2019 Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! It’s our 10th anniversary, and since X is the Roman numeral for 10, my theme is “Words That Have An X In Them.”

Annex is a word that’s both a noun and a verb. As a noun, it refers to an addition to a building, or a building that’s close by. There was a hotel close to our corporate office in Atlanta (less than a block away) where we were asked to stay whenever we came into town to work at Corporate. It used to be a Rodeway Inn, and we called it “the Roachway Inn.” It was one of those hotels where all the rooms are arranged around the swimming pool, and the rooms were nicely decorated.

At least, that’s what they tell me. The management of the hotel, knowing the sort of rowdy bastards that we were, never let us stay in that part of the hotel. Instead, they would always put us in the annex building behind the main hotel. We called it “the dorm” because it was a simple red brick box of a building, like a college dorm. The rooms were not quite as nice, but they were comfortable enough, the beds were in pretty good shape, and as long as you didn’t get a room across the hall from the ice machine, it was reasonably quiet. Besides, we weren’t going to be spending much time there, really just to sleep, shower and change our clothes. From the management’s perspective, it was far enough from the nice part of the hotel that we didn’t disturb the paying customers.

As a verb, annex refers to the process by which a civil authority (like a city) grows by taking over control of part of an unincorporated area. The City of Chicago did this to enclose O’Hare Airport into the city limits. There is a small village called Norwood Park, on the other hand, that is completely surrounded by Chicago that has so far been able to stave off any attempts at annexation. Likewise, there’s a small town south of Midway Airport called Bedford Park that’s been able to do the same. See, cities can annex other cities, provided that those cities vote to be annexed. If the residents of the town decide not to, the larger authority has to wait a couple of years before they try again, giving them time to change the demographics of the town (i.e. convince people open to the idea of annexation to move in).

Of course, if you live in Idaho, Indiana, North Carolina, or Tennessee, a big city can annex you without your permission, as this article explains. It reminds me of the joke about the guy who goes into a bank and says he would like to open a joint checking account. When asked “with whom would you like to open it?” he says “With someone who has money, obviously.”

One of our county commissioners (who’s no longer involved in politics) proposed incorporating all of unincorporated land in the county to prevent the cities in the county from growing in this fashion. The other commissioners laughed at him.

I searched for “annex” on Pixabay, and this came up. Presumably the building on the left is the annex, but I’m not sure. Image by sowens79 from Pixabay

Published by John Holton

Internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.

Published

63 thoughts on “Annex #atozchallenge”

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  7. Interesting theme and I’m excited to see what other words you’ve chosen. I remember the The little annexed buildings in high school. They were called T-shacks for “temporary.” Sadly they are still there, some thirty years later. I guess hospitals and law schools both had some cheap labor contract for annexed buildings. Like the hospital or med school mentioned by another person — In law school we had a bar (lounge frequented by most students), name the Annex. I spent a good bit of study time annexed to the Annex. Oh, and I really love the images you googled.They remind me of the perfect backyard writing room/retreat, I’ve been working so hard to convince myself and my family I need so I can finally revise the perfect novel — uninterrupted, of course. Ha … Lol. if only some solitude would do the trick for me.

    Love your theme and I will be back soon to read more

    Melissa @
    Sugar Crime Scene

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  8. Excellent start to the challenge! I’ve seen a few schools that had an “annex” which meant class was in a trailer while the school was remodeled. The picture of the annex houses is really neat.
    Operation Awesome. Our A to Z 2019 theme is the writing journey.

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  10. Hey, I remember Rodeway Inns! There used to be one in Oxford, MS, where I lived for a few years and attended college. I never stayed there, but the bar there was one of my favorites in town.

    I have a friend in Tennessee who got really, really pissed (as she had every right to do) when Memphis annexed the portion of Cordova she lived in. AFTER the residents there already paid their property taxes to the county, they then had to turn around and pay them to the city they had newly been annexed into.

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  14. My curiosity has been satisfied. I will learning something new from you 26 days this month :). Our annex was the portable buildings. I hated having classes out there. Freezing in the winter and too warm the rest of the year.

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  16. Holy Cow! John, this is excellent! What a marvelous picture because it surely tells the story! Thank you for sharing. That a fabulous idea too!

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  19. Great way to start off the challenge! I have heard the word frequently over the past several years. When I lived in the Portland metro area, Nike World Headquarters was literally just down the street from me. Beaverton, Oregon tried several times to get the property annexed so they could reap the benefits of the taxes.

    ~Mary
    Jingle Jangle Jungle
    Literary Gold

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  29. Wonderful start, John. I expect to have my notepad full of interesting words and tidbits from you by the end of the A to Z!

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  30. Hi John – annex … is not the sort of word we use that often – yet so many things are annexed. Great start – cheers HIlary

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  35. Great start. Look forward to seeing what other words you come up with. When you referred to the Roachway hotel I was expecting a horror story or two lol

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    1. I don’t know why they called it that, to be honest. Maybe when Rodeway ran the hotel it wasn’t quite as nice. I never had a problem there. It’s still there…

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  40. John,

    Yay, a word that I know! Awesome choice for the letter ‘A’ and how adorable is that little building you found on Pixabay! 🙂

    I hope y’all will find time to check out my Little Mermaid Art Sketch series beginning with ARIEL on Curious as a Cathy!!

    Happy A2Zing!!

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  43. I love your theme John and the first day of the 10th challenge really made for a great read. Looking forward to more.

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  44. A great start, John. The first thing annex brings to mind is the “annex “ where Anne Frank his trying to escape from the Nazis. I hope to visit the museum that honors her one day.

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  45. Great way to start the A to Z. We have had an Annex at the local hospital. I think we have a bar called Tne Annex or we used to. You can tell I do t go out at night:)

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    1. I think every hospital in North America has an “annex.” Sometimes several. The hospital near us is in a constant state of expansion and development.

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