One thing I have learned in living hard against a country crossroads intersection is that the human species tends to exhibit scofflaw tendencies when left without adult supervision.
But perhaps I give too little credit to the extremely high percentage of motorists who routinely run the highly visible stop sign that the Department of Transportation long ago planted securely at the edge of my acre of paradise.
Maybe, like a Bill Clinton unsure of what the meaning of “is” is, these daredevils simply believe that the jury is still out on what the meaning of “stop” is when displayed in 10-inch white letters on a fluorescent red background attached to a metal post in the backcountry.
The offenders come in all ages and genders, driving all manner of vehicles from beat-up clunkers to models fresh off the showroom floor; from loaded farm trucks and megatractors to Harley hawgs and all-terrain runabouts. On Thursday, as I watched from my mowing machine, a lady with a cell phone glued to her ear actually appeared to speed up her gas guzzler as she approached the intersection, blowing by the stop sign and quickly putting me and my mower in her rear-view mirror as she disappeared in the direction of Fort Fairfield.
My neighbor diagonally across the way jokes that most people may believe that he planted a barrier of spruce trees around his property years ago to fend off the cruel winds that blow down from north of the Arctic Circle in all seasons.
In truth, he claims, he planted the trees mainly to keep the wreckage from messing up his grounds when the inevitable great crash-and-burn extravaganza occurs at the intersection. It’s only a matter of time, he predicts. And I suspect he’s right. Soon as I figure out how to do it, I probably should program my telephone to speed-dial 911 so I can have a leg up in summoning the medics when the time comes.
Not that I should do too much talking about ignoring stop signs. Many years ago, as an immortal young owner of a new set of wheels bought with my United States Army mustering-out pay, I ran a stop sign at this very intersection one frigid winter evening because it had seemed like a swell idea at the time.
Unfortunately, Old Blue was lurking beside the Grange hall that then occupied the corner opposite my present digs. When he nabbed me just down the road, he said he was truly impressed with my audacity, if not my intelligence quotient. The caper cost me license points plus 30 bucks, as I recall, which was a pretty good chunk of cash at the time.
But the record will show that I have not run that stop sign, nor any other, since — proof that a young dawg can be taught new tricks. I believe an enterprising trooper might likewise successfully modify the behavior of the newest crop of miscreants and easily meet his monthly quota of collars in just a few hours at the same location today, even without the cover of the old Grange building.
Another extracurricular sport thriving on Maine’s back roads would seem to be beer can-tossing, an indication that lots of not overly bright people continue to drink and drive, despite all the publicity about the state’s tough drunken-driving laws.
As I pick up after these slobs while on the route of my daily walk, donating the collection to local schoolkids’ bottle drives, several things occur to me. One, you’d probably have to raise the deposit fee on returnable cans and bottles to at least a quarter to get the litterbug contingent to even think about not chucking them out of their vehicles.
As well, it seems unlikely that many of the litterers have served in the military, where practically the first thing drilled into a recruit’s freshly shorn skull is that, along with desertion in wartime, littering is one of mankind’s most abominable sins.
In this neck of the woods the state law against littering doesn’t seem to be working any better than the stop sign at the corner of my front lawn.
BDN columnist Kent Ward lives in Limestone. Readers may reach him by e-mail at olddawg@bangordailynews.net.