It always strikes me as funny when I speak to people from outside of Maine especially those people from Massachusetts and beyond. Ask anyone from Massachusetts where they are from in the commonwealth and their immediate answer is "Boston." OK now do a bit more digging and ask where in the bean they reside and the answers come back a bit more scattered. As though the rest of New England hides maps from us here. Answers like Woburn, Waltham, Framingham, Salem, Lynn and even as far away as Worcester! Almost like Mainers get completely lost while riding on their moose trying to cross the Memorial Bridge (one of the bridges that connect Maine to New Hampshire.) I realize their are more than a few simple folk here in the 23rd state when we seceded from of all stated Massachusetts in 1820. And yes, there is a bill on the floor as I type this trying to rename the bottom half (from Augusta to Kittery) to be known as Northern Massachusetts. Leaving only the upper half of the state to be called Maine and maybe even selling other parts back to Canada. Sorry Fort Kent and Presque Isle but speaking for the rest of the state, we really don't mind seeing you go. Your oral health alone gives the rest of us a bad name. Like the comedian Bob Marley once said when told in Fort Kent "Welcome to God's country." he replied "This is God's country alright, if God was a toothless, inbred circus freak!"
Any who... I was speaking about my little Maine village just a stones throw from the New Hampshire boarder. You see for the past 5 years this little town has had the major issue on their plate of trying to slow down dangerous traffic through the center of town. Something more than a few communities have experienced and overcome or even still wrestle with. For the past 5 years however my community has not only realized this is a big issue with the speed limit being 25 miles an hour in this area. They have seen it to be so much of a problem that they have even brought in a 3rd party at $10,000 to do a week long study on the average speed along this straight away. The results came back a dangerously high average of 60 miles an hour. Why they needed to hire a 3rd party to do this with speed strips and all sorts of other speed tracking systems at such a steep price when all they had to do is get a speed gun and position some old timer to sit roadside in their rocker while recording the speed for $9 an hour for 3 days is beyond me. But yet again we are small town Maine.
From this information your first question might be the same as mine. What about getting a police officer to patrol this area? Maybe a speed trap of sorts? I heard they do that sort of thing on all the big TV shows. Let me put that to rest with a solid and resounding NO! The town is too poor to hire a full time police officer or even a part time officer. So back to the drawing board they all went. From this they came away with a few plans all of which involved beautifying and restructuring the entire area. Setting up side walks to give the illusion of the road narrowing and setting up alternative traffic patterns. I can almost hear the teeth of Lewis Black gnashing as I continue just waiting to jump all over the small town government tomfoolery. Of which I am on his side.
So no longer able to hold my tongue and not wanting to always just be part of the issue and this time I might use my powers for good instead of evil, I decide to turn up at one of these meeting of the minds. This evening they where going to discuss the plan as it exists on paper to slow traffic from 60 back to a reasonable 25 mph. Yes I realize that last statement made me sound 166 years old and next step is to sit on my porch and yell at the kids to get off my lawn and try picking off birds with a pellet gun. But yes in this case I want people to slow the fuck down!
I go into the meeting armed with a simple solution of speed bumps. Not just your normal speed bumps as larger "speed tables" and normal speed bumps have already been shot down to preserve the snow plows. Removable speed bumps! We can take them out in the winter when the snow starts to fly and then replace the $75 bumps in the spring as traffic starts to ramp up again. The crowd went wild! In comes the new guy to save the day! As my Pop says "Strike up the band and slaughter the fatted cow! For it is party time!" Did I ever get any credit for this stroke of genius? I would like to think as they put in the bumps this past week someone said "Yeah this is a great idea by that guy in the white house" at the very least but I will not get my hopes up.Now here is where the bigger idiot comes into play. Seeing as my new hobby is watching these cars soaring at 60mph see the bumps just seconds prior to killing their brakes and suspension. If you listen close enough you will hear the squealing of brakes, the thud of 4 tires and me laughing hysterically. However this picture is the work of the biggest idiot, so I thought.
As I watched him back up his Ford F350 to the speed bump. Thinking no one was around at 3am when I am just getting home from the bar. Laying a patch of rubber over the bump to signify his disdain with the town for slowing his path. As I took down the license plate number I thought "who the hell am I going to tell? It's not like we can afford a cop."
Cheers!
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