Under construction – Arkansas Times

The observer was a little concerned about the building work in our exhibition city and beyond recently. Well, “concerned” is a bit much, we guess. How about “upset”?
Miffed is about as hacked as The Observer can get over anything these days. We’re glad your, spouse, and junior all have our two-shot Fauci Ouchie in our arms now and the necessary time has leaked to get as immune as we’re going to get.
Happiness tempered by sadness for those who didn’t make it to the shot reigns around the observatory. If you haven’t received your second dose, or the time required has not leaked, we kind of envy you. There is no sense of reaching the last day of your last two week wait – Your Living Day, as we have heard from soldiers leaving combat zones – and realizing that the captain has turned off the “You Might Just Die” message on the breath sign “And can now move freely in the cabin or even outside the cabin if you want.
After the observer’s small nuclear family successfully survived a plague, all we have to do is decide whether to go to the movies three times a week by eating at every restaurant we’ve missed in the last 14 months or so (we see us soon, live and in person, Damgoode Pies, Vino’s and Iriana’s!) or through exorbitant trips.
We stay strictly away from bars, tavernas and salons of all kinds for a while, although there is much of the live music there – another thing we sorely missed. After the year we’ve had this is an idea that would probably go straight to hell and Lord Knows The Observer no longer needs to be banned from drinking places in this town. Not when we are just getting back on our bar stool.
But we digress. Back to the stiffening.
There’s a lot of construction going on in Central Arkansas right now, and we love a lot of it. Perhaps not the massive Amazon Workhouse being built near the port where proud Amazon workers will undoubtedly one day piss in bottles because their robot boss said their puny human bladders don’t empty between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. But a lot of it.
We see a lot building up, a lot building up and basically preparing for America to wake up from our coronavirus stupor and find out who we are now after a long, long national nightmare. This country never wakes up unchanged from our bad dreams, from the Civil War to World War II, from Watergate to September 11th. When events of this magnitude occur, everything changes as a result: art, culture, fashion, literature, the way we live, what we value, everything.
We’re witnessing three or four Humdinger disasters right now – the pandemic with 570,000 dead and counters, an economic collapse against rival in 1929, the January 6 uprising, and four years of America run by a mad ex-QVC steak vendor. That’s a hell of a lot. So we’re very excited to see where all of this is going from here.
Did we just digress again? We are sorry. As I said: a long year. We are clearly taking the scenic route. Back to the miff.
What we’re annoyed about is the damn road construction here. We know it has to happen, but does it all have to happen at once? For example: The Arkansas Highway Department, in its infinite bureaucracy, has decided to demolish not one, but two of the major highway bridges that cross the Arkansas River in Little Rock: the I-430 bridge near Cantrell and the I-30- Bridge near downtown.
Yes, Maumellians and dogtowners can still drive to the acreage near the airport to the I-440 bridge or drive to Toad Suck to cross the river unhindered from the progress. But we’re kind of questioning the wisdom or even common sense of putting barrels on both bridges at the same time and slowing traffic to crawl. Not to be taken personally, but doesn’t that seem a little punitive to you?
The observer thinks of buying a barge and an old tug and using a ferry. Must be a better way of crossing the river than sitting in traffic. Back to the Future!
Another thing that added to our stiffening: Down on Rebsamen Park Road near Murray Park they put in some impressive speed bumps. They already have one, and it looks like they’re putting at least two more of the strips on the road.
We get it. It’s about fighting people who are driving down this street like they’re about to commit a vehicle murder. We know people do this because we’ve seen it with our own eyes, even though this road only leads to the dog park, boat ramp, and Big Dam Bridge, a place for biking or walking. Road racer The Observer also long ago (well past the statute of limitations so good luck in the next life, LRPD) that the long, remote, straight stretch of Rebsamen Park Road is probably a good place for people to get up too to no good in their fast cars.
Here’s what we also know: you’d better put some flashing lights on to warn people of those speed bumps at night or even during the day. If not, we fear that someone is riding a step missile or a Harley down to Big Dam Bridge for the first time since it was installed and that person hitting one of those speed bumps at speed is likely to fly and die.
The observer in the four-wheeled observatory – we swear, officer – exceeded the prescribed speed limit or a little bit above it, officer – the other day he almost did a “Dukes of Hazzard” finisher in broad daylight when we came across the unexpected hump in the middle of it Road, forced to quickly reduce thrust to five miles per hour so as not to rush over the mountain. Slower.
Try it for yourself and see if that hump doesn’t seem a bit extreme no matter what people are doing on this street.
Not trying to tell the honest and decent people with town how to do their job but the speed limit is either 35 or not. Because if a driver with a skill other than “Freestyle Monster Truck Pilot” hits the first of these bumps at a speed of 35 miles per hour or more, you’re sending white lilies. So we need flashing lights. Let’s hope this column never has to be filed as Exhibit A in a civil lawsuit to prove that it “knew or should have known” on behalf of the city.
However, this is The Observer: Always In Search of Citizenship, especially now that anyone reading this survived something that half a million Americans did not. After everything we’ve been through, dying from a speed bump would be a little stupid, don’t you think?
Until next time, citizens: keep it below the speed limit and the sunny side up. Oh, and take your recordings. The life you are saving might be that of the observer, and we’re a little bit biased right now.

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