Another season has come. The fall palette is awakening with vibrant colors as life gradually disappears from the myriad of green leaves which popped into an expectant world from their birth buds just a few months ago.
Soon, piles of deciduous death will cover the ground, making us take up our rakes to clean them all up. When that time comes and for dreary months afterward, controversy over Sandpoint's traffic problems will still be alive and kicking.
Winter, with its grayness, slop, and darkness is always a good time for bypass talk. Oops, I mean byway talk. Oops, darn----what's wrong with me---tunnel talk. How many seasons have passed since a traffic bypass metamorphized into a more palatable byway and now with a new season, a tunnel?
What would a heart doctor do if he had to wait for 50-plus years to reroute that blood which gets all behind schedule when there's a continuous blockage slowing it down? Will the medical world soon follow suit from Sandpoint's example and explore the possibility of a tunnel deep within the body mass to correct all heart functions?
Could be a few people will die in the waiting process, just like the leaves and just like the thousands of Sandpoint citizens and cattle truck drivers who have long waited for the day that something would correct the blockages that occur so many times as they try to slip through town without having a heart attack or suffering road rage in the process.
How many more leaves will bud out in the spring time and fall off in the autumn before the tunnel talk reaches its crescendo drowning out all thoughts of a byway? And, how many generations will it take before the word "bypass" is wiped out from all Sandpoint vocabulary and only applies to heart surgery?
The leaves will continue to turn, and traffic will continue to roll through town at a snail's pace. Sandpoint's heart congestion will magnify. Sandpoint's emotional state may also suffer. After all, when the heart is acting up, the rest of the body takes a hit or two also.
I don't think we'll hear much tunnel talk when it comes to heart surgery. They tend to like using those bypasses, and life goes on. I do fear, though, that we'll hear a lot of tunnel talk before any corrective arterial surgery occurs to aid traffic on a smoother, blockage-free pattern as it makes its way through Sandpoint.
I fear many leaves will fall as this new segment of de-congestion discussion ensues. And, I think many of us will die in the process, never knowing if a bypass would have worked.
4 comments:
Still remember the 70 yr old with a t-shirt...."I got my bypass, before Sandpoint did." about 5 years ago.
Rake the leaves...who rakes the leaves in the forest? Or is this a human neatness thing? Ask Bill, who rakes the leaves in the forest.. I always thought that was coverage for the roots,for winter, turning to fertilizer in the spring.
How 'bout a lawn? You'll never catch me raking leaves in the forest. I guarantee that!
For all of you that are hell bent upon building a bypass around Sandpoint, consider this: What good is a bypass if you kill the essense of the host body?
The uniqueness of what attracts people to Sandpoint will take a major hit if the currently proposed ITD route goes forward. There has been some wonderful planning going into the adjacent parks and bike paths that have become a part of ITD's plan, but consider how much more attractive these areas would be for the public to enjoy if there were no cars and trucks zooming by a few feet away.
To Gary...The host body isn't going to like getting it's gizzard cut out either with a nutty tunnel idea. Call James Thompson, he;ll set you straight.
Parks, on the east bank? Nope, if Ralph Sletigar has his way, it will all be Season's clones.
Frankly the downtown, other than my bank and where I get a haircut and where some bar hop on the weekend has little relavance to the average citizen. And their not about the sacrifice their homes for it either.
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