THE BIG DIG
By James R. von Feldt
All rights reserved
Well, as I was sayin the other day, there’s a lot goin on in town this week – though we don’t think of it as town, it’s really just a village.
Sure, we have a Gas & Grill, the social gossip center in the mornings, a barbershop, a propane gas company, a lumber yard, and two churches though not many go to church anymore.
No school. The old school has been abandoned since the dispute in 55 – I’ll save that story for another time. So, if you got kids in school, they’re all bussed into town 8 miles away.
We do have a City Park with a baseball diamond and lights for playing ball at night, which we use a lot during the late summer when the county-wide slow pitch tournament is on; and when the kids get out there on their own during the summer; and we use it when we have the big get-together in the fall – the Corn Show --it’s like a community and family reunion rolled up in one. It’s great fun to meet old friends and relatives to see how everybody but me is getting fat and old.
But all this belies what happened this week: the Department of Transportation, known around here as IDOT, decided to tear up the main intersection in town -- its main cause it’s the only one in town and because it’s on state highway 2. I admit it had seen better days.
Almost all of the adult retired town folks turned out to watch.
The morning went along easy enough, what with the trucks parking around behind the post office and town people greeting workers and all. We were having a grand time. Finally, they brought in this huge machine on a heavy trailer. There seemed to be a good deal of discussion about where it should start, but eventually, they got it off the trailer and lined up on the intersection.
State police positioned cars a mile west and east of town to alert the truckers to slow down. Workers with portable stop signs lined up to help the single trucks file through a narrow strip above the intersection.
So, around 10 O’clock, the machine starts to pound the concrete intersection. The contraption raises a huge metal block that must have weighed tons, then lets it drop – PLOP -- right on the concrete, and everything around jumps.
Now keep in mind that the big grain trucks are lining up cause there is no possible detour. Besides that, more than a few other trucks are sneaking across the state to avoid whatever truckers avoid on the main highways.
Pretty soon, the truckers are bored and tired of waiting, so they start blowin their air horns, but that don’t faze Ol Ed, Meekum, who’s in charge, cause he's mostly deaf since the fuel tank explosion back in 10. He got about three months off and only came back to work cause he knew all the computer passwords and wouldn’t tell anybody unless they kept him on.
Well, as I was sayin, I was right there when it happened; water starts to oooooze out from under the crumbling concrete in several places. That got Ol Ed’s attention, and he went over to the machine and told Amos to hold up a bit. All the onlookers followed him to inspect the situation and make helpful comments.
After a bit, Ed ordered everybody out of the way and told Amos to start up again, and he did. When the hammer came down this time it seems like the ground moved - a small earth quake. It was shaking like a big bowl of Jell-O. Right then, small water fountains popped up here and there.
Well, Amos had revved up that machine to its highest pitch and two more whacks of that big hammer and the whole machine bucks like a bronco -- a couple of times, jumps, tips then disappears. Yup, disappears, tossing Amos about 20 feet right in front of a truck trying to move past the intersection off to the side.
The trucker swerves and hits his breaks at the same time which jack-knifes the rig spillin ten thousand bushels of grain in the process.
And that’s when the gusher starts.
Out of this sinkhole, which had gotten bigger by the minute, a gusher went higher and higher until it’s over the electric lines. Then the transformer begins to sputter, pop and spark.
Everybody clears out quick-- horns still wailing at the top of their voice; People running in every-which-way - except for Ol Ed, who is calmly lighting a cigarette.
Frosty grabbed Ol Ed and kinda talked and led him over to the side just as the electric pole snapped and the wires came down on the grain truck. That caused an explosion and lots of fireworks.
Well, Ed saw THAT and took off fastern anyone had seen him go in years.
About an hour or so later we were left scratchin our heads, lookin in the hole and wonderin what would happen next.
The KYOU TV station helicopter from Ottumwa was the next attraction. It stopped right over the hole about 200 foot up and took pictures for the evening news. – we all saw it.
Well, bit by bit, everyone who had turned out to witness the excitement retired to the Gas & Grill. We discussed the finer points of what we saw and how it played out tell we were tired of it all.
The next day the machine was hoisted out of the hole by a giant crane. The wet grain was shoveled up by hand in a day or two, and truckloads of gravel and sand were brought in to fill the hole.
Amos was OK. He lives in town and went to work the next day even though he was skinned up a bit.
Cousin Max showed up the day the clean-up began. He’s runnin for County Supervisor again. He was cornerin everybody he could -- to talk. Jeanie told me he griped a lot last time he was Supervisor - but that’s just the way it is sometimes.
They say the water will be on again soon.
PS: Don’t forget to write.
Well, that’s it for now from where the corn grows tall and pigs fly.
Take care. All my love,
Grampa Jim