I’ve been driving up and down Santa Clarita’s longest-existing typographical error since I was a kid. Bouquet Canyon Road would unofficially shut down, allowing Basque shepherds to cross with sheep numbering in the hundreds. They’d wait for a lull in the traffic — which didn’t take long back then. A noble and alert sheepdog would nudge the alpha male ram across the narrow country road and, there you go.

That’s that. You’re stopped for a half-hour.

I had the 1959 potty brown Buick with the space-age fins back then. It had a small hole in the muffler, which made it sound like a hot rod. It wasn’t. The company’s motto then was, “Buick Is A Beauty, Too …” Eye of the beholder, the big gas guzzler was a dog. I’d turn off my car, set the brake, climb out and sit on the hood, back resting against the windshield. Hands behind my head, I’d feel the sun on my face and count — well. Sheep.

I didn’t know then Bouquet was a mistake in translation, dating back to 1850 when the first government cartographers modernized ancient maps. On horseback, they rode up the then-dirt road and came upon the vast ranch of a former French sailor named Francois Chari. He had jumped ship years earlier off Ventura, cowboyed around and eventually carved himself a big chunk of today’s Bouquet Canyon. Years later, the area would also be known as Hangman’s Canyon after one of the participants of the epic Castaic Range War was lynched there. Personally? I like Hangman’s Canyon better than Bouquet. Not as wimpy. Looks better on a ranch entrance: HCR —........

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