Yet Even More Streets and Roads

As a public school first grader, right after I finished my Dick and Jane readers, my class and I started on our first chapter textbook, Streets and Roads. That was followed by More Streets and Roads. (They’re still available on Amazon.)

Who knew that would be a harbinger of life to come? It seems my days are now filled with just trying to navigate from point A to point B with minimal frustration in Big D.

The best route is discussed in Dallas the way Italians discuss olive oil and wine. Everyone has a driving tip. GPS and Google maps may show the level of traffic but not which streets are closed down to one lane, which have detours for those ubiquitous orange cones, and which have so much construction going on that you can’t squeeze past all the cement trucks and pickups.

Don’t even think about running to the grocery or anyplace else unless it’s during school hours. There’s noon traffic, drive-time traffic, school zones, and all the traffic lights that are so poorly timed that somebody should run for Street Manager. Listening to books on tape is my only salvation.

With the potholes, which gave way to the repair of a broken water main that has been going on for weeks, and weeks, and weeks, going down the artery in my neighborhood is not dissimilar from a ride I once took from the airport in Honduras to the coast.

If there were any of those green and yellow freebie city bikes near me, I might pedal to the nearby stores, except I’d probably be run over by a steamroller or excavator.

So I’ll just take a trip down another road – memory lane. Remember when Lover’s Lane Church was on Lover’s Lane, when Inwood Cycle was on Inwood Road, when you could leave an hour before a domestic flight and still make it, when you could drive around town admiring the azaleas without nearly getting side swiped, and leave a parking lot without encountering an anonymous door ding?

So move to a small town lady, right? No, I’m just waiting for drones to ferry me around. In the meantime, I’m considering writing a manual on Dallas navigation tips titled Yet Even More Streets and Roads.

Author and Columnist Len Bourland can be reached at [email protected]

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Len Bourland

The views expressed by columnist Len Bourland are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of People Newspapers. Email Len at [email protected].

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