Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 16:36:53 -0400
From: Thurman Maness
Subject: D.O.T’s Shabby Highway Mowing . .
I watched hyway 64 being built. Five nerve jangling years of digging, pushing, pulling, honking, burning, leveling, measuring and messing about. All for the perfect hyway . Natural hills and slopes were cut away and replaced with ‘more perfect’ man made piles of dirt. Man made hills and slopes that would accommodate modern machinery and the overflow of rain water. The new highway also gave this area something along the roadside, from imported dirt, we never had before on the shoulders of the road- Fire ants, thistle and jimpson weed.
Last year, the three or four mowers completely missed my driveway. Leaving the weeds to grow and grow. A volunteer Popular tree in the ditch tree now reaches six feet or more before I have to cut it myself, so I can see to pull my car onto the highway. And the few times the mowers have cut the grass along my dirt driveway, the machines have dug into the soil and made a mess of it. When they sometimes mow around the mailbox, they hit it and it now will not stand up straight.
I watched last week as the mowers, at least two of them, deliberately skipped my driveway, leaving ragweed waist high and the area, including the mailbox, looking overgrown. It is difficult to get out of my car while in the driveway, because of the tall weeds. I have complained before, to no avail. I know for a fact, that from my residence, six miles to Pittsboro, no other driveway looks so shabby. And I am willing to bet, that no driveway, in the other direction, toward Siler City, has ragweed waist high.
The one consolation is, that it will become so overgrown that Duke Power will mistake the weeds for trees interfering with their power lines, they will swoop down again and level anything and everything in sight.
thurman maness hyway 64