To the Editor,
Picture this if you will.
Driving to work on a Monday morning, driving down 9th Street towards Pine and you make the "S" curve and look ahead of you. What do you see? Seven cars lined up behind the city street sweeper going up the hill at a snail's pace.
Oh my Monday is going to be a good one. At this point my only priority is to get to work on time. Then the question of the year pops into my curious mind, "Why in the heck are they street sweeping during morning traffic?" Then the second question pops into my mind, "Why in the heck are they not doing this at night when no one is on the roads?" Then an epiphany strikes me, EPIPHANY - To experience of sudden and striking realization, we are in Poplar Bluff where a lot of things are done opposite of forwards, meaning backwards.
I am speaking like this because I have to realize this little task of street sweeping must be considered a PERK job for someone who is up in the years with the City Street Department and gets the cushy jobs. Meaning, Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., then a three hour lunch break until 1 p.m. then gets off at 4 p.m.
I understand this letter seems like I am hating on the Street Department but I have much respect for a tax paid employee or employees when it takes six of them to remove a brick, placing them neatly in a pile on Main Street then leave the empty hole overnight only to come back the next day to fill it will some sand and replace the bricks.
Ahhh the bricks, another touchy subject. I will tell you outright that no, I am not originally from Poplar Bluff rather I was born in St. Louis. However, I have family that have been residents here for many, many years and I have spent a lot of time here, moving here in 1991. I have to relay this to you all great folks, and that, I do mean sincerely, my grandparents who lived over on Park Street back in the 1940s, and who I spent a lot of time with in my childhood years, oops, I mean, when I was a young lad back in the 1900s, they used to complain about the bricked roads back then, speaking of the early '60s.
There is no way people can honestly believe that a street made of bricks is a monumental piece of history.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, now that was and still is a piece of monumental history but look what they did, they paved the bricks and kept a two foot wide strip from one side to the other of bricks to keep the monumental history intact. I got an idea, lets do the same here.
Poplar Bluff, as much as I admire and love not only the city and the people is not anymore a piece of history than Corning, Arkansas, is, and I am not attempting to degrade Corning, Arkansas, either just proving a point of fact.
It is amazing how a letter beginning about complaining of a street sweeper can turn into a rant about bricked roads.
Now, going back to the street sweeper, let's get that thing working nights instead of during traffic hours. And please do not tell me, "Well we run it at that time because there are less cars parked along the curbs during the day crap." There are just as many cars during the day, if not more than there is during the night time parked on curbs.
I got an idea, let's have a vote on the bricked streets to see if people want to keep them or not? I have a feeling that will never happen because the historical people are afraid of what the outcome will be.
But, if we do have a vote on it, make the vote available for ALL Butler County residents, not just the city folks that get to vote on that referendum.
Did you just notice how I jumped from streetsweeping back to the brick roads again...sheesh, I cannot make up my mind.
Okay, I am done with my daily rant....GOD BLESS YOU ALL.
Roger Burton
Poplar Bluff