YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out of the newspaper’s window on Main Street and I am hopeful that neither of you will think I get fixated on insignificant, little, tiny, arcane and/or small things after reading this column.
Some time ago I wrote about the bumps in portions of Main Street specifically the Central Business District stretching from the courthouse on the north down to the railroad tracks on the south.
Both of you will recall how I explained scientifically in simple easy-to-read prose how when the bumps over the gaps between concrete sections got too bad the city had the top layer of asphalt scraped off and then had some hotsy-totsy companies fill the gaps with some experimental scientific stuff called Something Something.
The Something Something stuff was different for EACH of the eight or so blocks of Main in an effort to find out which worked best (because apparently other towns also have a problem with bump-bump when concrete street sections are overlaid with hotmix asphalt — and it is “bump-bump” not just “bump” because of front and back tires bouncing over the bumps).
After the gaps were packed with the experimental filling the city laid a thick hotmix layer over the sections and the leveled cracks.
During this time some University of Arkansas perfessers — always willing to help out — volunteered to monitor the street to see which of the treatments worked the best. But after the newspaper reporters and television cameras went away, so did the perfessers.
Years passed.
Main Street in the Central Business District began to suffer from bump-bump, again. It was like the Hawaiian Islands — moving upward because of volcanic pressure.
Let me interrupt to say that it is possible that I noticed this condition before more normal citizens did.
And I know it might seem like I’m fixated on the bumps, but I’ve begun keeping up with which bumps are worse. I’ve got a rating system which I am willing to share at practically no cost with the paving companies and the University perfessers.
I’ve noted that there are approximately 10 concrete sections per block, therefore there are approximately 10 bump-bumps per block.
I am keeping a record of which bump-bump is worst and in my opinion the worst is the one directly under the stoplight at the intersection of Main and Hempstead Streets.
Bump-bump.
No. I should have written BUMP-BUMP!
I am sorry that I did not keep a record of which company filled which the gap with what experimental Something-Something substance because then we’d know which substance does the worst job. But that could be confused with fixation instead of careful observation.
If I were fixated I would invent a bump-bump measuring system which involved the amount of coffee sloshed from a standardized cup.
This is proof that I am not fixated. Just carefully observant.
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THE GOOD EARTH. So now it’s early February and we’ve had some cold, cold days. Now is the time to begin watching treetops. They’re stark and bare now, but later this short month or early next, we’ll see green fuzz sprouting.
Already people are posting Facebook pictures of jonquils pushing up from the earth.
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WE CRAZY. Since the 1970s the sideline football mascot for the Nebraska Cornhuskers has had his left hand fingers fixed in the ‘OK’ position (for you Nebraska grads, that’s almost 50 years). But now the university is changing the hand sign to ‘No. 1’ because some hate groups use the ‘OK’ to signal white supremacy.
Do you see the irony in a place of learning reacting to a signal from a small bunch of thickheads?
Or, maybe the mascot is just admitting that the Cornhuskers are no longer OK. Either way, we crazy.
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PLEASE GET the Covid-19 vaccine. Do your part to stop the spread of the virus. You can be a good example for others.
The persons who require hospitalization and ventilators in Intensive Care Units are almost all unvaccinated.
Maybe you don’t have symptoms of the virus but you might carry it to someone whose body cannot fight it off. They might die. It has happened.
Get vaccinated. I can’t afford to lose either of my regular readers.
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THINGS I LEARNED from opening email. According to the Redneck Book of Hunting Etiquette: “Dim your headlights for approaching vehicles, even if the gun is loaded, and the deer is in sight.”
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WORD GAMES. The famous Tense triplets: Past, Present and Future.
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HE SAID: “Love of man for woman — love of woman for man. That’s the nature, the meaning, the best of life itself.” Zane Grey, author of Western novels
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SHE SAID: “I did what I could to inflate the rumor I was on my way to stardom. What I was on my way to, by any mathematical standards known to man, was oblivion, by way of obscurity.” Tallulah Bankhead, an obviously witty film actress
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
