It was a glorious autumn morning in this bustling place that was, not so long ago, a sleepy little town. I was heading to First United Methodist Church, where–every Thursday, all year long–anyone struggling with hunger or homelessness (or both) is offered a free hot lunch from our “Grace on the Go” food truck. My job that day was to help prepare and serve beef-and-bean nachos.
As I usually do when driving to town, I counted the ever-growing number of dump trucks and cement mixers I encountered on the way. Answer? Eleven.
There are times when I wait at the traffic light at Old Kentucky Road and Spring Street at least twice before making it through. But I was lucky that morning and pulled into the Circle K gas station with no trouble. As I filled my tank, I watched people come and go. The first to grab my attention was a guy in a diesel dually pickup truck, who pulled—crooked–into a handicapped parking space beside the front door. He left the motor running and sprinted inside. Less than a minute later, a young woman in a late-model sports car roared into the other handicapped spot and did exactly the same thing. Their vehicles were still in those spots when I pulled out of the station.
Heading west past Food Lion, I wondered for the ten-thousandth time why planners decided that a sidewalk extending from the Gulf station to the square makes more sense than a turning lane. I also wondered who in their right mind thought the massive expansion of Saxony Apartments (derisively and appropriately called “The Barracks” by many) was–in any shape, form or fashion–a good idea.
I arrived at the food truck in the church parking lot a few minutes early and decided that, since the County Court Clerk’s office was only a stone’s throw away, I should go ahead and renew my almost-expired car tag. So I slung my purse over my shoulder and walked up the hill to the light at Dixie and Broad.
The scene ahead of me was pure chaos. The portion of S. Dixie from the law office on the corner all the way to the parking lot of what used to be the “old” K-Mart–not to be confused with the “new” K-Mart, which was a lovely cow pasture before the new K-Mart (which now houses Big R Farm and Home and Habitat Restore) was built–was being prepped for repaving.
Every kind of road equipment you can imagine was there. It was the stuff four-year-old boys’ dreams are made of. Milling machines. Excavators. Bulldozers. Graders. Rollers. Dump trucks.
Though I could see my destination, I wasn’t at all sure how I was going to get there. Machines were moving rapidly in every possible direction. The man who, I assumed, was supposed to be coordinating all this movement seemed much more interested in his cell phone than his job.
“Hey,” I yelled at him over the monstrous din. “Am I allowed to be here?”
No response. I waved my arms frantically, hoping to catch his eye, but still he stared at the phone. There seemed to be no choice but to navigate the confusion on my own, which I eventually did.
The good news is that I didn’t have to wait in line to get the new sticker for my license plate. The bad news is that the bottoms of my shoes were sticky with tar. The other bad news is that my plan to avoid the paving mess on my return trip by cutting behind the buildings on South Dixie, going down the hill through thigh-high grass and then jaywalking across Broad to reach the church parking lot didn’t pan out. Turns out I wasn’t brave enough to chance stepping in a hole or on a snake or being mowed down by a car.
Chalk it all up to “progress” in our once-sleepy little town.
(November 1, 2025)