Like some slow moving locust infestation eating its way across the Corn Belt, the construction work on Calder Avenue in my town of Beaumont, Texas, slowly creeps westward. Today it was near the Exxon station and Calder Avenue Washateria where the avenue intersects with Ewing Street. Tomorrow, who knows? Wilcox, Arizona?
The busy four-lane thoroughfare which leads to downtown has been chopped up like so much concrete ice blocks for some time now. For one who has to drive into town such as I do — whenever I have to go to my office — it has been a rather frustrating exercise because one never seems to know what streets will be blocked off leading to Calder.
Our City-Government-At-Work indicates the construction is all for a good cause, to make badly needed drainage improvements. For a city built on a river only 45 miles from the Gulf of Mexico and only 16 feet or so above sea level, it would seem worthwhile to have decent drainage.
Indeed areas around Calder are flood prone and not just from those inconvenient little hurricanes but from massive rain storms as well. So I shouldn’t bitch about the construction and having to take alternate routes each and every day. One can even view the problem this way, it’s good training for getting around all those downed trees and power lines when the next hurricane blows through. Smile, brother, smile.