Road Work Ahead

Every day another one of those diamond-shaped signs pops up.  With a sigh, I get out the city map to anticipate one more alternative route to some familiar place in this city where I have lived for over four decades.

In my imagination, I picture a factory somewhere - merrily turning out more signs for the highway department to pound into the side of the road. A factory run wild for which no one can find the
stop-button.

Then there are those more ominous orange barrels. I deny inner urges to mow down a section of them - deterred only by the possible damage they might inflict on the car. And ditto - another factory somewhere mass-producing these deterrents to smooth sailing down freeways and streets.

Most of these orange objects magically disappear when winter arrives. Which poses a serious question: what do they do with them all? Is there a large storage complex somewhere? Covering acreage that would be better served by living things like grass and trees and people?

In the national discussion about government storage of telephone data, some "in the know" types of ex-employees assert that there is a giant complex built in Utah to hold all of these records. It reminds of the first computer I ever met - taking up an entire room, floor to ceiling, carefully tended by specially trained people in white coats. A far cry from this nifty electronic miracle I now use, so thin there is not even an opening for discs loaded with software.

All our conversations to family and friends to arrange lunch and chatter about significant things like the weather forecast. Stored away in the hot desert sun

And preservation of my messages sent via my newly-learned skill of texting - of which I am so proud. Why yesterday, I texted a grandson that the purple string beans we planted are almost ready to pick - a culinary delight he has never experienced (when they are steamed, they turn a dark green and are the most succulent and tender green beans on the planet). Such significance that information is to our national security. I just hope that if some analysts somewhere listen in, they will jot a note to themselves to order these delights next January when the seed catalogs have arrived.

But back to the Road Work Ahead signs. Not even enough syllables to make the first line of a haiku poem. And muttering about them does not seem to have any effect on their reproduction rate.

I turn to another technique for coping with them. I repeat my mantra over and over: Jobs for Americans. Good for Cars. Jobs for Americans . . . At least I feel like I am doing my part to repair the faltering infrastructure in this country. Since Congress seems so incapable of doing anything constructive.

Perhaps I am too focused on staying out of danger on the road that I am missing the underlying theological premises here: Life is impermanent. Change is inevitable. Proceed carefully in life and remain in the present. Do not be distracted by memories of yesterday or last week - or projecting into the future as I try to remember what we need from the grocery store.

Perhaps these signs are REALLY telling me to slow down and smell the roses.