Under Construction

By G. E. Shuman



I once heard that the Golden Gate Bridge is so long and so maintenance-intensive that a permanent crew of men starts at one end of it, painting, and by the time they are done, have to begin at the first end again, and paint it again. I also heard that the bridge is always painted the same color; orange vermillion. Well, when I hear stories like that, especially when they include the color orange vermillion, I tend to doubt them. I doubted the bridge story, so recently looked it up. The story is dead wrong. The crew doesn’t have to continually paint that bridge at all. More precisely, the crew just has to continually touch up where it, relentlessly, rusts. To me this was an improvement of the situation, but not a great one. This, especially, since the color really is orange vermillion.

Just imagine, someday in the future, having been a member of that painting crew, and having a conversation with someone else, near the end of your life.

“Well, young fella, what did you do for a living?” (Whenever someone calls you “young fella” you know your days are numbered. I have had it happen to me, once or twice. I could have killed them, but didn‘t.)

“Oh, I painted a bridge.” The elder would reply. “Actually, more precisely, I just touched up the paint on the bridge.”

“Well, then what did you do?” The younger would respond.

“That’s it. I touched up the orange vermillion paint on a bridge.”

“How long did it take you?“

“Fifty years.”

To me, working on such a never-ending orange vermillion project could drive a person crazy. It would be similar to raising teenagers.

Somewhat similarly, I have a friend who used to paint one outside wall of his home, every summer. His house always looked freshly painted, and the idea was that he never had to paint the entire house at once. My take on it was that he never, ever, finished painting his house. He did it every single year. I wish someone would tell me which is worse. Painting a whole house, or going, forever, round and round, painting a never-ending house.

I began remembering the aforementioned examples of endless work yesterday, as I waited, less than patiently, in a long line of traffic at a road construction site along Route 2. Please know that I’m not seriously complaining, as I like smooth roads, but it seems like those yellow construction signs, and the human, hardhat-wearing, orange-(vermillion?)-vested SLOW/STOP sign spinners are on nearly every street this summer. I understand that last spring’s flooding has caused much of the road construction, but it seems like many towns have also chosen this year to be the one for straightening curves, exhuming sewer pipes, and planting new traffic signals.

I guess I just need to accept that road work, like bridge painting, is never really done, while it is always BEING done. The next time you’re in line at a big construction site, listen to the sound of those big diesel engines. You can almost make out the words: :Tearrr it up, pave it, tearrr it up, pave it, stripe it, patch it, tearrr it up, pave it.” Maybe that was just my strange imagination acting up again.

I do wonder what it would be like to go down a road in summer, and not eventually come upon a yellow, diamond-shaped sign with the words ROAD CONSTRUCTION AHEAD painted on it. It would probably be like getting to the end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and putting down your paintbrush.