Fair season is done, but fortunately Lebanon has kicked off its Fall Roadwork Fest to keep things lively.
If you like dust, traffic jams and the sound of heavy machinery thumping the Earth, you are in for fun, fun, fun. Love the smell of fresh asphalt in the morning? We have it in spades!
The Fall Roadwork Fest features rollicking roundabouts, nifty detours, adventurous alternate routes, and games of Guess the Closed Highway Ramp. An untold number of tourists are pouring into town to join us, or maybe they’ve misread the temporary direction signs.
On Monday, we got into the spirit when we climbed Seminary Hill, intending to take the dead-man’s curve onto Glen Road. It’s an exciting option after the yearlong closing of the infamous Dry Bridge, the gateway to Route 12A. Incidentally, it could use a swankier name. I guess we’ll cross that bridge, umm, sometime or other.
As it happened, Glen Road was backed up almost all the way to the Miracle Mile, which is busy enough in normal times. We got the last spot in line, and I’ll never know what happened to the unfortunates behind us. Things crawled from there, so I gave Dede an impromptu lecture about the New England Patriots’ glorious victory on Sunday. That held her attention for only so long, so I took a topical detour.
“We’re seeing Glen Road at its best,’’ I said. “Yellow and orange leaves are popping, and we all owe a word of thanks to chlorophyll, or a lack of it, or something.”
“That truck is hitting its brakes,” she replied, bringing me back to the matters at hand.
It was a behemoth ahead of us, black, raised so high that many would need a ladder or a vaulting pole to board it. It had four wheels in the rear; I pondered its mighty torque. “I bet the traction is something,” I said.
There was time to mull almost anything: Senate polls, the rise and fall of the Red Sox, even the Roman Empire — a YouGov poll found that 4% of American men think about it daily. Then it was on to random song snippets. For reasons unknown, Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” has been popping up again. It swings as I sing my imperfect lyrics.
Fly me to the moon,
Let me play among the stars,
Something, something, something,
About Jupiter and Mars …
“THE TRUCK IS HITTING ITS BRAKES,” Dede said with increased urgency.
And that brought me back to Glen Road, West Lebanon, Planet Earth.
We safely made it to the dump and a couple of stores and returned by driving away from home and then back again. Life is counter-intuitive now.
That involved hopping onto I-89 South, in order to take the first exit and circle back on the Miracle Mile. I don’t know what miracles have happened there.
Excitement ensued when we approached the exit, where vehicles were backed up onto the highway. We joined the line moping in the breakdown lane. I briefly envisioned a maniac bearing down on us from Vermont at 90 mph or more, but that was not a happy thought so it was back to “Fly Me to the Moon.” So smooth, so calming.
But madcap driving is just part of the fun. Many Upper Valley kids will trick-or-treat this year wearing hard hats and orange safety vests. Give an extra piece of candy to those who show up in excavators or backhoe loaders made of cardboard, or sheet metal.
Tweens tend to go out in groups, so look for one holding a shovel for digging, and four or five dressed as project supervisors with clipboards. A classic.
Of course, the Fall Roadwork Fest is known for its pop-up events.
The Fabulous Singing Traffic Flaggers could show up anywhere at any time. They perform special covers of hits like this one from Diana Ross:
Stop in the name of love,
Before we call the cops,
Think it o-o-ver.
One-third to one-half of city streets and local highways have something going on right now, such as pothole filling, crosswalk makeovers, asphalt do-overs, speed bump calibrating, etc. Every week is Infrastructure Week. And some days White River Junction is getting into the act, so nobody has to — or can — miss out.
A couple dozen orange construction barrels on Main Street in West Lebanon have transformed the landscape. Someday, perhaps, traffic artists will move them in a synchronized dance.
It will be beautiful, but no one knows when it will happen. The West Lebanon Roadwork Fan Club (unofficial) advises you to return often — and enjoy!
The writer lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.
