A church was recently demolished on the block right across the street from our home in Wildwood Crest, and in its place, a number of new homes are being constructed. As I was parking on that street opposite our house, our daughter-in-law, Celeste, who was standing in the street, reached down and picked up a nail…and then another… and then another, and then a screw, and then…The first thing I knew, she had a handful of them (her “find” is pictured below).
As she was showing them to me, I was reminded of the time that I went to a tire repair shop to have a slow leak fixed in a tire. Upon inspecting the tire, the repairman said, “Sir, you don’t have ‘one’ nail in your tire, you have a dozen. Where have you been driving?”
In fact, I had been driving day after day by a construction site. That had been years ago, and the self-admonition to avoid such sites had over time totally slipped my mind. So, to save you grief, I’m telling you.
Beyond trying to avoid such sites, what else might we do to save ourselves and others a lot of inconvenience? For one thing, we might encourage our towns to run the street sweepers down those streets as often as possible when the nailing is going on.
We might also require that the construction companies put up the foot high plastic barriers that we often see elsewhere. Would that stop the nails? Maybe. But, as a practical matter, would that really be workable because the construction vehicles and forklifts are constantly coming and going from all over such sites? Would we just be creating a headache for the workers? After all, we really are glad that this new construction is taking place, bringing jobs and tax revenue into our economy, not to mention upgrading our towns with new housing.
My tire with a dozen holes had to be discarded. Maybe this little heads-up will save somebody not just an inconvenience, but an avoidable expense.
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From the Bible: Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:31-32
