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Editor's ViewpointMeditations Of A Minnesota Mossback |
I just received a copy today of a citizen petition signed by residents of the city of Grant and of White Bear Township. These citizens live on Goodview Avenue, County Road 7, and on Portland Avenue.
They are tired of all of the residents of Hugo using Goodview Avenue and wish to put a stop to it immediately, demanding that the Grant City Council and the White Bear Township Board of Supervisors cul-de-sac the gravel road, which not only divides the city and the township but Washington County from Ramsey County.
“Transient traffic” is what we are known for, I guess.
Never mind that those roaming Hugo taxpayers chipped in a chunk of change for the signal at County Road J and Highway 61 at White Bear Township’s request, so township residents could get home a little faster.
Never mind that a large number of those transient “invaders from the north” who peruse Grant’s byways are trying to get to Mahtomedi schools (did you know over 300 homes in southern Hugo are located within the Mahtomedi School District?)—exactly how do we drive our children to school without traversing the city of Grant?
Those groveling grader-happy Hugonians who for years cheerfully kept Goodview Avenue south of our own city limits somewhat passable by voluntarily providing a road grader … and who, for several years, bladed and plowed July Avenue inside the Grant city limits just to help Grant residents out … we have been labeled transients, all.
So much for cooperation.
A thousand points of light … they’re dawning on me all at once.
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Today, my husband and I celebrate our 31st wedding anniversary.
No small milestone, that.
Over the years, we have come to accept each others’ shortcomings, frailties, minor irritations.
For example, my husband has learned that I am allergic to manuals.
I love new technical equipment, as long as he’s there to tell me how it works. Never mind the blinkin’ book.
This frailty of mine was illustrated once more last weekend when we were discussing the failure of my phone headset a month ago (it frees up my fingers to type during phone interviews). We’ve been unable to replace it, and I’m getting a crick in my neck cradling the receiver.
Suddenly, he says, “Have you replaced the batteries?”
“What batteries?” I say with a sinking feeling, realizing that I am likely to be found operating true to form once again if I find (jeez!) the headset actually has batteries in it.
But what a difference three decades makes. Whereas twenty years ago, I would have received the RTFM[d] lecture (“Read the flippin’ manual [dear]!”), this time he chuckles and announces, ten minutes later, that the double AA’s have been duly replaced and the thing is operational again. Bless his heart.
I’m looking forward to the next thirty years, and hope they don’t whiz by quite as quickly as the first.