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Many of the north-south routes in our neck of the woods are impaired by road construction. Interstate 35 is backed up at least from Stacy south to Highway 97 near the Columbus / Forest Lake boundary. Old Highway 61 has some sort of construction around Stacy and much further south in Hugo. Traffic bailing from I-35 has impacted Forest Lake and jammed the round-a-bouts. If this were Scowhegan, ME, we’d be living the punch line: “Can’t get they-ahh from hee-yahhh!” or something like that.

North Country winters can tear up roads

Photo by J. Harrington

I suspect that I may have blogged previously about our seasonal alternative to North Country winters, road construction season. In all seriousness, I’d like to propose a piece of legislation, if we can ever get the Minnesota Legislature to do something for us citizens instead of just taking care of their corporate donors. For at least the seven county Twin Cities metropolitan area, and, preferably, for the thirteen county standard metropolitan statistical area, we need a road construction coordination czar who can prevent the detours from detouring drivers into yet more road construction. That’s it. That’s all. But it would significantly improve the quality of life for almost half the year and might even save money, let alone tempers and fenders.

To prove that we’re not entirely unreasonable, the coordination would not apply initially to gravel roads, even though the other day we were trapped for a mile or more behind a township road grader doing no more than 5 mph. The driver wouldn’t stop to let us and the vehicles behind us pass so we took our chances at a slightly wider spot where a driveway intersected. Obviously, we succeeded.

The Spring

by Gary Snyder

Beating asphalt into highway potholes
pickup truck we'd loaded
road repair stock shed & yard
a day so hot the asphalt went in soft.
pipe and steel plate tamper
took turns at by hand
then drive the truck rear wheel
a few times back and forth across the fill–
finish it off with bitchmo around the edge.

the foreman said let's get a drink
& drove through the woods and flower fields
shovels clattering in back
into a black grove by a cliff
a rocked in pool
feeding a fern ravine
tin can to drink
numbing the hand and cramping in the gut
surging through the fingers from below
& dark here–
let's get back to the truck
get back on the job.

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