Road Rage

Our mile-long dead-end road is not clearly defined on the local map. It appears to join another road of the same name, although they are separated by seven hundred or more feet of land and solid rock. It appears that way because on the map there’s a broken line attaching them in accordance with a long ago plan to make them one.

If they were joined, our quiet little road would become a thruway for trucks and traffic from the middle of town to an area now less easily accessible. No one on our road wants that to happen.

Agreement ends there, and we’re nose up against whether or not to pave our dirt road or not, and some residents on our quiet, neighborly road are up in arms about it. Lengthy letters with words in UPPER CASE appear in our mailboxes claiming dishonesty and scare tactics on the part of those who prefer to keep our road unpaved. If paved, say the pavers, the road will be widened and safer for pedestrians, cars and the bus one neighbor would love to see scheduled to pick up her children by her driveway rather than at the end of the street. It is probable she is the only one who looks upon this as a positive outcome.

The others want to keep it unpaved because an elected official has said if it is paved, the thruway will, lickety split, become a fait accompli.

A town employee insists this isn’t true–so what it comes down to is—whom do you believe?

The non-pavers believe the first, of course, and the pavers, the second but no one actually knows what’s true.

Work is afoot by the non-pavers to have the town abandon the property between the two roads making the possibility of their marriage moot. If that happens, the non-pavers will join the pavers and everyone will be happy assuming the measurable amount of ill-will now floating around disappears.

I am counting on an amiable resolution so that I can continue to hope Israel and Palestine, the Shiites and Sunnis and any other dichotomy on the front page of the morning paper will—someday, somehow—achieve the same.

Yours, a non-paver,