Some people do this writing exercise every day. Once a week is all I can handle. Perhaps once a week is all my readers can handle. Check out Friday Letter #99.
It’s finished
The echo of the backup-warning horns has faded from our block today.
The backhoes, roller tractors, dump trucks, asphalt spreaders and concrete
mixers are off to another site, taking their noise and fumes with them.
It’s been a long time coming. Twenty years since we came here is a long time.
Shortly after we opened our business here on 18th St. in Greeley, we realized there was a problem with storm water drainage.
Namely, there was no storm water drainage system. Never had been. Other similar streets had such systems, but 18th from the railroad tracks to the Highway 85 Bypass had no drainage structure whatever.
One could, with any reasonably large rain or snow, watch waves of water coming off the city street and south onto private property.
A large mosquito-infested pond would form almost every summer at the back of our neighbor’s property.
You know me. I saw my role as a person who could be in touch with the appropriate authorities and get this corrected.
I wrote to the Weld County Health Department. The department dealt with me by refusing to respond. No answer.
I wrote to the Colorado Department of Highways. (Eighteenth Street is also U.S. Highway 34 Business.) Again, no response. The silence was deafening.
At one point in political history, a candidate for City Council came by the store and promised – I say promised and I mean he promised – that if elected he would see to it that this problem got the attention it needed. I and some others voted for him. He got elected.
Somehow the ribbon-cutting ceremonies and the council meeting cable TV profiles took precedence over our negligible “east side” flooding problem.
That man is still in office, although these days he is so infuriated with me that he won’t speak to me on the street. Pre-election promises seemed to have come too easily. And he didn’t respond well emotionally to my persistence.
Obviously, Mr. Tommy’s letter-writing campaign was a failure. We were still getting voluminous storm water flow from the city street onto our property.
What to do? Without any particular claim to inspiration, one day I happened to speak to a city engineer’s department staff member. Wow. How easy. I had planted a seed rather than just spinning wheels. Or butting my head against a wall.
A reality
It took a couple of years, but once the folks at the City Engineer’s office promised a solution, it actually happened. They kept the promise.
It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t inexpensive. Using funds from the voter-approved storm water infrastructure tax, the city has constructed a curb-and-gutter system which handles the flow. It works, we’ve already seen it work.
There were some evil trade-offs. The curb they had to build is quite abrupt, to meet the grade needed. Drivers will need skill and attentiveness to negotiate it. This may prove to be a drawback to retail attractiveness.
Construction forced us to close our business a couple of days – and it really interfered with traffic at the retail stores to our east and west. There were several times during which we couldn’t get our vehicles out of our driveway. Frustrating, but not the end of the world.
There was dust. There was noise. Our home and our business building were jolted and jarred alarmingly by heavy equipment moving heavy material. It was our earthquake shakedown cruise.
One of our neighbors became especially frustrated with all this. Ironically, her property had been the recipient of the highest volume of storm water, and she was most vocal in her objections to the presence of the work crews.
Our neighbors across the street are opposed to such modernization. They prefer the dust and the weeds they’ve cultivated for decades along their side of the street. They disdain a sidewalk, somehow. Go figure.
But no storm water drainage system improvements needed to be made on the north side, so supposedly the neighbors are happy at the absence of improvement.
On our side, the appearance is actually quite nice. It looks like a real business street in a real city. We’re sure it will help business – and in the spirit of that inertia, we’ve done some repair, cleaning and painting ourselves.
There’s a sign in a vacant business building three doors east. It reports the site will soon serve as a Pony Xpress store. Hooray! Serendipitous legitimacy! Thank you Pony Xpress. And welcome to the neighborhood.
What a long strange trip it’s been. We’ll soon know if we’ve done the right thing by “upgrading” along here.
Just think! If we “look” enough better, maybe taxes will go up! What a concept.
‘Plan B’
I get a blank stare from lots of folks with this one: “Pregnancy isn’t the problem. Lust is the problem.”
Why is that so difficult?
Think it through. The abortifacient “Plan B” gives itself away by its very own trademarked name.
It means “Plan A” didn’t work. “Plan A” was expected to fail. “Plan A,” apparently, was to enter into sexual relationship with the “hope” that procreation wouldn’t take place.
Or, “Plan A” was to let oneself get carried away and have casual sex . . . pretending no premeditation. After all, there’s always “Plan B.” Casual sex is performed by people who have casual morals, so they need more than one Plan.
“Plan A,” which we hippies once called “Free Love” or sex outside holy matrimony, is in itself immoral. The only thing more immoral is “Plan B.”
Why is this so difficult?
“Relativism” is why. Christ’s Church hasn’t been diluted by relativism, but the assembly certainly has been. Many, many Catholics are fully into it. They live lives of parallel moralities.
Hey. I got a question for ya. Are we Democrats or are we Catholics? Is that too hard for you? Maybe you aren’t a Catholic after all. Maybe the Catholic Church isn’t for you.
One more question
Why is it that a renegade priest (the lothario from Cuba) is suddenly the darling of the media?
Why does the World focus attention on a sadly mistaken young man, while ignoring thousands of other priests who don’t think they know better than the Church, better than the Bible, better than God?
I wouldn’t suspect that Satan is in charge of the media. But he certainly has a firm grip on people who support the media by buying the product, by watching the “programming.”
Satan cackled in glee when the “news” reports revealed a new darling, a renegade priest. This is why the Church despises scandal and why Satan glories in it.
Word of the week: Scoop. Nope, it’s not from Latin, it’s from Middle English, schope, a bailing vessel or shovel. In newspaper slang, which is the meaning I was going for, it means to publish a piece of news before a rival publication. It means to win a newsgathering competition, as in “We scooped the Tribune on this story.”
Next week’s word: Verisimilitude.
Gripes? Complaints? Whines? Comments? Adoration? Puppy love? Reciprocal rant? Feel free to express yourself in the comments below!
It’s finished
The echo of the backup-warning horns has faded from our block today.
The backhoes, roller tractors, dump trucks, asphalt spreaders and concrete
mixers are off to another site, taking their noise and fumes with them.
It’s been a long time coming. Twenty years since we came here is a long time.
Shortly after we opened our business here on 18th St. in Greeley, we realized there was a problem with storm water drainage.
Namely, there was no storm water drainage system. Never had been. Other similar streets had such systems, but 18th from the railroad tracks to the Highway 85 Bypass had no drainage structure whatever.
One could, with any reasonably large rain or snow, watch waves of water coming off the city street and south onto private property.
A large mosquito-infested pond would form almost every summer at the back of our neighbor’s property.
You know me. I saw my role as a person who could be in touch with the appropriate authorities and get this corrected.
I wrote to the Weld County Health Department. The department dealt with me by refusing to respond. No answer.
I wrote to the Colorado Department of Highways. (Eighteenth Street is also U.S. Highway 34 Business.) Again, no response. The silence was deafening.
At one point in political history, a candidate for City Council came by the store and promised – I say promised and I mean he promised – that if elected he would see to it that this problem got the attention it needed. I and some others voted for him. He got elected.
Somehow the ribbon-cutting ceremonies and the council meeting cable TV profiles took precedence over our negligible “east side” flooding problem.
That man is still in office, although these days he is so infuriated with me that he won’t speak to me on the street. Pre-election promises seemed to have come too easily. And he didn’t respond well emotionally to my persistence.
Obviously, Mr. Tommy’s letter-writing campaign was a failure. We were still getting voluminous storm water flow from the city street onto our property.
What to do? Without any particular claim to inspiration, one day I happened to speak to a city engineer’s department staff member. Wow. How easy. I had planted a seed rather than just spinning wheels. Or butting my head against a wall.
A reality
It took a couple of years, but once the folks at the City Engineer’s office promised a solution, it actually happened. They kept the promise.
It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t inexpensive. Using funds from the voter-approved storm water infrastructure tax, the city has constructed a curb-and-gutter system which handles the flow. It works, we’ve already seen it work.
There were some evil trade-offs. The curb they had to build is quite abrupt, to meet the grade needed. Drivers will need skill and attentiveness to negotiate it. This may prove to be a drawback to retail attractiveness.
Construction forced us to close our business a couple of days – and it really interfered with traffic at the retail stores to our east and west. There were several times during which we couldn’t get our vehicles out of our driveway. Frustrating, but not the end of the world.
There was dust. There was noise. Our home and our business building were jolted and jarred alarmingly by heavy equipment moving heavy material. It was our earthquake shakedown cruise.
One of our neighbors became especially frustrated with all this. Ironically, her property had been the recipient of the highest volume of storm water, and she was most vocal in her objections to the presence of the work crews.
Our neighbors across the street are opposed to such modernization. They prefer the dust and the weeds they’ve cultivated for decades along their side of the street. They disdain a sidewalk, somehow. Go figure.
But no storm water drainage system improvements needed to be made on the north side, so supposedly the neighbors are happy at the absence of improvement.
On our side, the appearance is actually quite nice. It looks like a real business street in a real city. We’re sure it will help business – and in the spirit of that inertia, we’ve done some repair, cleaning and painting ourselves.
There’s a sign in a vacant business building three doors east. It reports the site will soon serve as a Pony Xpress store. Hooray! Serendipitous legitimacy! Thank you Pony Xpress. And welcome to the neighborhood.
What a long strange trip it’s been. We’ll soon know if we’ve done the right thing by “upgrading” along here.
Just think! If we “look” enough better, maybe taxes will go up! What a concept.
‘Plan B’
I get a blank stare from lots of folks with this one: “Pregnancy isn’t the problem. Lust is the problem.”
Why is that so difficult?
Think it through. The abortifacient “Plan B” gives itself away by its very own trademarked name.
It means “Plan A” didn’t work. “Plan A” was expected to fail. “Plan A,” apparently, was to enter into sexual relationship with the “hope” that procreation wouldn’t take place.
Or, “Plan A” was to let oneself get carried away and have casual sex . . . pretending no premeditation. After all, there’s always “Plan B.” Casual sex is performed by people who have casual morals, so they need more than one Plan.
“Plan A,” which we hippies once called “Free Love” or sex outside holy matrimony, is in itself immoral. The only thing more immoral is “Plan B.”
Why is this so difficult?
“Relativism” is why. Christ’s Church hasn’t been diluted by relativism, but the assembly certainly has been. Many, many Catholics are fully into it. They live lives of parallel moralities.
Hey. I got a question for ya. Are we Democrats or are we Catholics? Is that too hard for you? Maybe you aren’t a Catholic after all. Maybe the Catholic Church isn’t for you.
One more question
Why is it that a renegade priest (the lothario from Cuba) is suddenly the darling of the media?
Why does the World focus attention on a sadly mistaken young man, while ignoring thousands of other priests who don’t think they know better than the Church, better than the Bible, better than God?
I wouldn’t suspect that Satan is in charge of the media. But he certainly has a firm grip on people who support the media by buying the product, by watching the “programming.”
Satan cackled in glee when the “news” reports revealed a new darling, a renegade priest. This is why the Church despises scandal and why Satan glories in it.
Word of the week: Scoop. Nope, it’s not from Latin, it’s from Middle English, schope, a bailing vessel or shovel. In newspaper slang, which is the meaning I was going for, it means to publish a piece of news before a rival publication. It means to win a newsgathering competition, as in “We scooped the Tribune on this story.”
Next week’s word: Verisimilitude.
Gripes? Complaints? Whines? Comments? Adoration? Puppy love? Reciprocal rant? Feel free to express yourself in the comments below!
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