A new year. A new decade. A chance to start again, and maybe, just maybe, take the lessons of the past and learn from them to become a little better, as that big ole Earth keeps on spinning…
While many flock to gyms, commit to a monthly budget or put down the Marlboros, others consider the changeover as an opportunity to celebrate new beginnings. The first baby born at a local hospital always prompts a front-page news story. (Does anyone ever follow up on the first babies of the year to find out how well they fare, and if there are any patterns? ATTN: Malcom Gladwell.)
Our Hudson Valley is no exception. But while local newspaper readers were cooing over this innocent babe, another no less astonishing miracle was playing out across the river in Kingston. On a section of a street called Broadway, in the vicinity of approximately 450-575, as the street addresses would place it, at approximately 2:33 p.m. today, an area of soil measuring approximately 12-sq-ft beneath the road thawed, completing its 12th freeze-thaw cycle since November. At around that same time, a large U-Haul driven by a fedup taxpayer bound for South Carolina passed over that part of the road, causing the asphalt to buckle at the very point at which the soil was most weak.
At that moment, the first pothole of 2020 was born.
Local motorists have already dubbed the pothole “Clarissa,” which means clarity, in honor of its being the first pothole born in 2020. (Optometrists and ophthalmologists use the term “20/20” to refer to someone with normal vision, this means that the test subject sees the same line of letters on the Snell chart at 20 feet that person with normal vision sees at 20 feet.)
Local auto repair shop owners, many of whom received the news while vacationing in Florida, were pleased. “We knew it had to happen sometime,” said Bruce Nacker, of Nacker’s Garage in Ulster, reflecting on the universe’s random yet predictable nature. “It’s really just a matter of where and when.”
He added that potholes are hardest on a car’s shocks and struts, and that if you’re going to get in there and fix one of those rusty buggers, you might as well do them all. Gonna run you about $600.