Making up the news

Bill Packard: Sitting in traffic, eating ice cream, monitoring progress

Bill Packard

Tue, 09/26/2017 - 9:15pm

Sometimes, things take me back. When I was doing executive transports for the firm, I picked up an executive who had recently relocated to Texas. He was back here tying up loose ends and I was taking him to the airport to fly to his new home. He asked if we could stop at French & Brawn and of course we did. He returned to the car with a couple of muffins and a copy of the Camden Herald. He was taking the paper back to his wife to remind her of when they lived where “they had to make up the news.”

I’ve written about this before and if the editors choose to print it, you’re likely to see another version in the future. We’ve lost sight of what a wonderful place we live in. Believe me, I know there are some serious challenges in the area and a lot of people and resources are working on those, but overall, this is a pretty cool place to call home.

Looking at the headlines in the local media, here’s what makes it above the fold on the front page.

In Owls Head, the selectmen are working on an ordinance to regulate roosters and/or chickens. I’m certain roosters are involved but can’t honestly say if chickens are included. Seems sexist to me as a male and wonder if it will stand the court challenge of discrimination. But it’s a big issue in Owls Head.

A lady on a dead end street in Rockland has signs that are too big in a residential zone. Someone complained. (They always do.) Since the signs have a political reference, I suspect the issue is more with the topic of the sign, rather than the size, but now the City of Rockland has another issue to deal with. More big news.

As if these two things aren’t enough, there’s construction everywhere. Well. Where we live, road construction can only be done during the warmer months and there are only so many of them. The Thomaston project makes the news on regular basis and everyone has been complaining and now that it’s back to one lane traffic, people are in a frenzy, again.

Let me be clear that I do sympathize with people who need to travel that way every day and understand that they need to allow extra travel time and it has to have been a strain on the Main St. businesses, but it’s really not the stuff of breaking news. Let me just share something between you and me. This is just between us, OK? Promise you won’t go blabbing this all over. Some days when I get out of the office early, I go to Dormans, get a small strawberry cone with chocolate jimmies and drive to Thomaston just to see what’s going on with the construction. I calmly sit in traffic eating my ice cream cone and monitor the progress. I patiently wait for the flagger’s direction and then continue on. It’s kind of interesting every couple of weeks to drive through and see all the progress they’re making.

There is one concern with the Thomaston project that I’ll have to see how it plays out. I don’t know where my wife will park when she’s picking up bags of firewood from the Prison Showroom. Looks like there’s going to be a sidewalk there now. But that’s for her to deal with because I don’t buy the bags of wood. I did, but whenever I buy wood, I would get soft wood, but when Kathy buys the wood, they always give her bags of hardwood. There could be a message there, or not, but bottom line, Kathy buys the firewood. I hope they have a place for her to park.

Route 17. Nineteen miles of Hell. This project has ruined more lives than most anything that has happened in the Midcoast in the last 20 to 30 years. People are waiting in traffic sometimes up to five minutes, occasionally more. This has been going on for weeks, even months. Some folks probably lost an hour or more of their life sitting in traffic on Route 17 this summer. Texting is dangerous and illegal. When I’m waiting in traffic on Route 17, I catch up on texts.

If there’s nothing on my phone, I enjoy the radio. Here’s what’s special to me about this Route 17 project that has so many people upset: For the first time in probably 35 years, I no longer hit that hole in the road on the westbound side across from the Union Highway Garage. The hole by the Hope/Union town line in the westbound lane is gone, too. The roller coaster ride just before you get to Meadow Street in the westbound lane is gone too, and all that works for me.

Frank was right. We live where the media has to make up the news and that’s not a bad thing. In the rest of the world, people have recently been flooded, seen their homes blown away, had to evacuate, been stranded for days, rescued by helicopters, but here in Maine, we’ve got roosters crowning, signs that are too big and road construction making the news.

Bill Packard lives in Union and is the founder of BPackard.com. He is a speaker, author, small business coach and consultant.