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February 02, 2010

Failing Grade

F. Eff. Found lacking. Monumental blunder. Nothing. Fell short. Flop. Disaster. Missed the boat. Handled badly. Take your pick of the descriptive terms. The bottom line is that Lauderdale County and the city of Ripley cannot/will not/ do not handle snow removal.

See, there is something fundamentally wrong when the streets are not cleared, salted, sanded, and/or treated in some manner. The haphazard method used on the route I use to get to Rte. 19 was nothing short of an abomination. Some streets weren't touched at all. On others, John Deere must have raised the blade at intervals--clear and dry in some spots; a sheet of ice in others. And at the intersection on Rte. 19, I-C-E. Take your choice--slide onto the highway while trying to stop at the stop sign OR stop completely and then have no traction to make the turn. Pulleeze!

So I'm on Rte. 19 and it looks as though it has been cleaned. Smooth sailing--until I hit the areas where John Deere didn't do a thing. On one of those snowy, icy, patches, uphill, no less, I could smell the paint as a big truck and I swerved and fishtailed through that mess. Talking about praying (and cussing)! But get this, once you crossed the county line into Haywood County, the difference in maintenance was like night and day. C-L-E-A-N! All the way to Wally. (Wally's lot was a different matter--a sheet of ice.) So why can one county clean its roads and the other can't? Did the fatality in Haywood have anything to do with their cleaning the streets, including their stretch of Rte. 19? Maybe. But, Haywood has salt trucks and regular plow trucks like most cities. Ripley? N-O-T!

I think that I have stumbled upon the game plan. See, the snow melts quickly here. Temperatures were in the 50's on Monday; high 40's today. That troublesome patch which had me thinking that I was "on my way home" had melted by the time I returned home. As had much of the ice on the streets in town. So. If you can wait for Mother Nature to take care of it--why bother?

It's Black History Month. Learn something new. I'll be doing my part to make sure that you do.

Be Blessed.

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