Midwest Memo
by Alan Shultz

My last column for 2006 came in a little late. It wasn’t the best way to finish out the old year. I put off writing till the deadline and then my path to the computer was blocked. It was a kind of hole in the bucket scenario, too long off a tall tale excuse to sell to a time pressed editor on deadline.

Our daughter, Liz, and son-inlaw, Jake, stayed overnight after Christmas. Traveling with them was their dog, Rosie. Rosie sleeps in a big wire cage. Tuesday morning dawned dark and cold and the bed was warm and comforting. Between me and the path to my computer was a sleeping dog, who would need to be walked. I figured Rosie would not understand newspaper deadlines so that if I passed her in the dark she would wake, bark and then the two of us would soon be outside sniffing for rabbit trails.

When I finally left our toasty warm bed, Rosie indeed inquired as to my plans, woofing, barking, whining and thundering about in her cage. Of course, I couldn’t find her collar and leash, so all kinds of year-end commotion followed, but not necessarily any good column material.

If the old year is about paths taken, some wise, some not, then the promise of the New Year includes the possibilities of paths that lie ahead.

On Sunday morning we crossed over the Wabash, traveling from Adams Township to Delphi. We crossed the river over the newly refurbished Carrollton Bridge that reopened the week before.

The refurbished bridge is wider than the old one. Two cars can pass over the bridge at the same time, without the hesitation and potential risk that the design and specification of the old narrow bridge posed. But it’s still a spot to slow way down for, and it’s still a spot for caution. The hairpin curve on the north end is pretty much the same and any speed much over 25 mph is probably ill advised.

I suspect that buried somewhere in the story of the Carrollton Bridge there’s a collection of metaphors illustrating paths taken, paths blocked and paths rerouted.

About ten years ago the Carrollton was destined to be replaced by a totally new structure, involving a $2.5 million dollar project and requiring condemnation of adjoining private land. There was going to be a bike lane and a 45 mph speed limit and a swath of bridge with a much longer span crossing the river on a diagonal.

To me, the original, more ambitious proposal always seemed like way too much of a bridge and way too fast of a crossing given the twists and turns of the road the bridge served. But the driver of that project, of that path, was federal financing, interstate design specifications, and a more universal approach to the idea of “path.”

Time passes, options change, opinions shift, new paths are considered. It happens in individual lives, it happens in communities and even in bridge projects. Somewhere along the line the path switches. After following the Carrollton project for many years, I lost track of the plan. Then one day my path was blocked.

I remember thinking how inconvenient the new path to town would be. Range Line Road, Pittsburg, 421 - this wasn’t our route over the Wabash. Yet, that’s exactly what it became. New paths get forged when old ones get blocked. You go with the detour, you plot your own new path, or you stay put. Those are the options.

So on the eve of the New Year, I’ll be thinking about paths taken and new paths to be considered.

All best wishes to our readers for pleasant and exciting paths in 2007.

Happy New Year.