Fixing problems from the ground up

Hello, bleary-eyed people with shattered nerves. I am here to help. Or at least distract.

When I realized this column would appear the morning after Election Day, I didn’t panic. My shtick here is to discuss things like finger lickers who touch supermarket produce. Just the same, I am a citizen who happens to excel at worrying about the future.

Due to an early deadline (last week), I didn’t know what today’s headlines would be shouting, or if the election weirdness would get even weirder. (Likely.) But I did know one definite thing and it somewhat echoed these strange times: I asked someone to fling some dirt.

True. I nudged a guy to toss mud around.

I was all, “Dude, you work for the citizenry. I saw somethin’ bad. Ya gotta hit the streets and spread dirt on this.”

And he did. Almost instantly.

But there is no scandal here. The dirt of which I speak is actual topsoil. Yet, it’s related to civic duty.

This all started on one of my meandering walks. Weeks ago, I noticed a sizable hole in the grass, right next to a well-traveled sidewalk. It was surprising to find such a void in the earth on a route so heavily used by joggers, kids on bikes, parents with strollers and dog walkers.

The hole was about a foot and a half in diameter and deep enough to trip up humans, creatures and wheels. There was even an exposed pipe along one side. However, the way the land sloped at that spot, combined with lush grass, the chasm was somewhat hidden in plain sight.

The first time I saw this abyss of doom, worry set in. I imagined a speed-demon kid on a bike veering on the grass to avoid an ear-budded runner. He’d hit the hole and fly over the handlebars. Or possibly there’d be a pre-dawn jogger crossing paths with a sleepy dog walker. She’d unwittingly swoop over to the hole and break her foot. “Something must be done!”

But, one mile and a half-podcast later, I forgot about it.

Another week, there was that hole, still gaping at me. I thought, “Peril! Why haven’t the authorities been alerted?”

This time I tried to photograph the void with an intended city hall dispatch. Per usual, the iPhone was out of storage. My imagination again conjured fictional but possible debacles, some involving sweet nuns on tandem bikes or exhausted parents with triplet strollers — all falling to catastrophe.

Yet, by the time I got home, Terry Gross on “Fresh Air” had redirected my thoughts.

Around the third or fourth encounter with the chasm of future fiascos, I shook my fist at the heavens. It was time for action. I called the city after office hours on a Friday. I left a babbling message on an employee’s voicemail, muttering words like “danger!” and coming close to warning about flying nuns.

With the guilt finally lifted, I forgot about the pit of potential calamity as I drowned in the noise of election pitches and Blue Apron ads.

But whoa, first thing Monday morning, a public works employee called me from the sidewalk in question. He asked where exactly the mini sinkhole was located. “East side, near the third telephone pole from the corner,” I answered.

Boom. He found it and fixed it. Dirt flung, just like that.

As far as problem-solving goes, this story is a relative nothing. There are quiet heroes among us: people who don’t let others fall through much bigger cracks. Like my friend who volunteers her tail off to instill a love of books in children and to bring literacy to overlooked adults. Or my senior citizen uncle, who for years delivered meals to homebound folks who might have been younger than himself.

We can’t fix or control everything, but there are so many holes we can fill despite the dysfunction swirling around us. Our own backyards are a good start.

This story was originally published November 9, 2016 at 12:39 PM with the headline "Fixing problems from the ground up."