Our county is nothing like Northwest Ohio, where country roads form perfect square miles laid on a giant table top (except for jogs where surveyors reportedly goofed, such as near the homes of my mother and sister). Here, it could take a half hour to drive to dine with a neighbor on the other side of a mountain, or an hour and a half on a slippery winter's night for fools who should know better.
So when I headed home from orchestra practice last night, I kept an eye on the car's thermometer and prayed it was accurate. Thirty-four degrees made me queasy. I admit it; I'm a wimp, terrified by 32 degrees and rain in the dark, no longer invincible like a teenager. "Wanted: Struggling writer to chauffeur a scaredy-cat. Part-time gardening responsibilities. Salary negotiable."
Virginia volunteered. That would be almost like hiring a ghost. She has better things to do.
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James, surveyors don't make mistakes. Ever. It's just one of those things where laying out squares on a round surface gets a little, um, difficult after a time.
ReplyDeleteThank you for straightening this out. I goofed; like me, those square miles cannot be "perfect." Moms, dads and others who have lost loved ones on those dead men's curves, please take comfort in the perfection of surveyors. Maybe you could blame the roadbuilders instead; you see them -- 1 digging and 4 leaning on shovels to make sure no mistakes are made. Recently, modern surveyors have been faultlessly helping to remove the jogs so road re-builders can make the roads appear straighter.
ReplyDeleteThat's the joke - road builder was laying off a bunch a people since the invention of a shovel that stands up by itself.
ReplyDeletebut hey - it's not our fault the world is round instead of flat and does not conform to our geometry. Just saying.
What are you saying? I figured you were kidding about surveyors not making mistakes. It might be interesting to go back and see what assignment was given to those surveyors. If it was to provide a nearly straight route from point A to point B, then they, or someone else who was responsible for connecting the dots, goofed. These jogs are not little misses; the roadway from one direction misses the roadway from the other direction by 40-50 feet--and the starting points were only about 1 mile apart.
ReplyDeleteI was kidding - errors are not uncommon.
ReplyDeleteI thought you might like the metaphor - there are a lot of "dead-man curves" that come to mind.