Too Easy to Forget

The gravel roads throughout the state of Iowa took a beating last Fall, Winter and Spring.  The biggest culprit?  Record levels of rain in the Fall and snow in the Winter, followed up by a fairly damp Spring.  Our little Honda sat in our drive, unused, for most of the first half of 2019 for fear that it would be sucked into one or another of the sloppy areas that could be found on every section of road between us and paved thoroughfares.  As it was, Chumley, our 4-wheel drive work truck, had a few adventures that had us wondering.

We were forced to admit that the roads were not in sufficient repair to host a couple of busloads of Waterloo kindergartners as was planned.  Not only that, but the farm was probably a bit too wet as well.  We're happy to help with education, but we aren't equipped to extricate a bus-load of children from the morass that was our road.

The road crews had their hands full and their budgets had to be strapped.  Remember the record snowfall?  That means the snowplows had to be out more than usual.  Add in some flooding that washed out roads and the pervasive condition issues with all gravels and you must have had a nightmare set of conditions for those who were trying to manage maintenance and repair.

But, it is too easy to forget that there were people working at a disadvantage as they try to keep our rural roads passable.  More than one time, I was struck by a comment from someone who just "didn't understand why the crews couldn't just fix the roads."  Sometimes, these comments included a little bit of abuse aimed at the very people who were fighting against conditions that were created by record-setting precipitation.  I hope I did my best each time to remind people of the weather conditions that contributed to the current situation, but I am sure I'll never know if it made a difference.  After all, we're so very comfortable with placing blame on others for our discomforts without taking time to connect a few dots and considering the causes.