Today I’m going to share something a little different, a heartwarming community tale.
They are resealing our neighborhood asphalt this month, putting a new surface coat on it throughout this development. Last week, they did the other half of the development, and today they are starting on our side.
Our community has an active Facebook group, and folks often share all kinds of happenings there, both good and bad.
Last week the group was full of disbelieving posts. People who should’ve known better, including some of our neighbors, drove across the newly surfaced streets before they were fully dry, sometimes going around barricades to get to them, leaving permanent marks.
They weren’t the only offenders, though. FedEx and UPS drivers also went around and over the barricades to deliver packages on the just-paved roads. One of them, when confronted, said “I have no choice. I have to deliver these.“
Another woman was seen trying to drive up onto the sidewalk and around the barricades. When someone went to talk to her, she said she had no idea the resealing project was going on. Keep in mind that it’s been posted on the Facebook group, in an email sent all residents, in letters left at front doors, and marked clearly on signs at both main entrances to the neighborhood. This was not a matter of under-communication.
We ourselves saw a neighbor walk across a freshly sealed street to get to the gym, leaving his semi permanent footprints on the pavement, and another turn down onto a just sealed street instead of going the other way to avoid it.
But what happened next was kind of inspiring.
One of our neighbors decided to create some sawhorse type barricades, much better than the white-and-orange construction easels and yellow tape the sealing folks have been using to block off streets. These new barriers are much more imposing. He made two for each entrance to the area being sealed today.
In addition, other neighbors began discussing strategies, including keeping an eye on the streets from their homes and parking their cars sideways in their driveways to prevent others from tracking the sealant up onto the cement.
I got into the spirit of things and posted a helpful map that, unlike the original one, showed the actual street names, and gave locations for parking on both days.
The whole response reminded me of something that Jon Stewart said. He talked about cars lining up to go through the tunnel from New Jersey to New York, and how they would take turns, one after the other, with no regard to who was of which political party, skin color was or any other defining trait. It’s just how we work together as a society to make things function, that old fashioned getting along and problem solving. It’s not sexy, but it’s the bedrock of who we were, and who we should aspire to be.
I saw a bit of that in action here this week. And while I am not ready to let the other side off the hook for some of the horrible things that have happened, it’s good to see this kind of cooperation and community happening here at the local level.
Who knows if it will work? All it takes is one person not paying attention to leave their driveway and ruin half the street. But I’m hopeful. And even if it doesn’t, I like what it signifies.
Maybe that’s the way we get out of this whole mess as a country and as a world. Not by relying on our political leaders, but by each of us going out and doing our little part to fix things together.
One person at a time.