SPELLING BEE

BY BEA WESTERBERG

When are the flying cars coming?

OCTOBER: The leaves are tumbling down from the trees in a crispy fashion, in part due to the wind/season and the tempers of the people driving the road work areas are shooting up due to lack of signs and holes in the ground.

I thought I had a feeling for those of you who have had to drive the construction road closed/dug up here/dug up there. Nope, I never got a true feeling for it until I spent a good part of a morning trying to get to the Wayne’s Auto Body. The plan was that Husband Larry was going to take the truck in for its repair appointment and I was going to pick him up there after my doctor’s appointment. Of course it was the day I thought I would not need my cell phone for ANY reason.

I had seen detour signs in a few places along the highway so I thought the signs would be good to me and lead me right to the spot. The signs were very much lacking once you turned off the main highway. Soon I was cruising through areas of Hastings that I never traveled through before. Never realized the business park was as big as it is and lots of other surprises. I did get within a fast speed jump of Wayne’s but the 14 foot deep holes in the highway complete with workers made that a no-go. If only we were advanced enough to just hit “fly”. I also could not see if Larry was already at the place and with no cell phone to call the place or home to check. I even stopped and asked twice on how to get there and was told “just go to the truck parked over there”. I was not on track to ask just how was I going to get to that truck which was about 30 feet from me at that time. I decided going home was the best option. The yellow Mustang had viewed enough places for the morning!

I was a bit “fluffed up” by the time I got home and I did see that Larry is home with the pickup so he also had failed a delivery attempt. He had called and had gotten the directions of the day on how to get there. I had not gone far enough on one of the many roads I had traveled. Coborns was on my list of things to do but I figured it would be another 5 miles or so to get to Coborns which was only a few blocks away so forget that plan. The people at the shop said they were promised signs would always be in place to get their customers to them but that was a massive fail.

Okay, time to go home and get over this mess. That was not going to happen either! Decided I would use Pleasant Drive on the way home but soon came to a complete blockage. Another hole in the ground along this way home and no signs telling drivers they would run into problems. Had to do some circles to get back to main highway and take another road. I was getting “fluffed up” enough that the car probably could fly.

This was only a very short time in the all season pain a lot of you have so I have a very small complaint compared to people affected by it every day. You are STRONG people. I will give the City, State, or whoever is responsible for signs an “F” for the most part with maybe a bit higher mark for at least putting up a sign on the main highway. I see a lot of schools have dropped giving students an “F” and let them re-take a class because an “F” creates problems in the student’s future. Well, powers that be, you have created a MESS and I will keep the “F” for you. You created problems in lots of lives and not just in Hastings.

It was pointed out to me that we have less than 90 days left in the year 2021 so garden and lawn clean up time is upon us. Please put the plastic flowers away for next year. Keep watering so that the plants that overwinter can have a strong start in 2021. A lot of garden plants can be cut back and mulch applied. Compost or toss the annuals that gave you their all this summer.