Flag People Along the Highway
Conversations
Construction workers on G-71, near Bussey, IA.
For the past two weeks or so road construction crews have been resurfacing the asphalt highway that runs in front of our house. On maps, it's called Highway G-71, but it’s known locally as the “Bussey Stub.” Maybe a dozen years or so ago, before COVID took him from us, I asked a former county engineer why it was called the “Bussey Stub.”
“Because it’s the short stub of paved road from Highway 5 to Bussey,” he replied as if that answered my question.
South and west of us down Highway 5 and a few miles on the other side of the highway is Marysville. It's about as far from Highway 5 as Bussey is. The road from Highway 5 to Marysville is gravel.
“Why doesn’t Marysville have a paved stub?” I asked.
“Because they never asked for one,” he replied.
While the road construction was ongoing, there was a pilot truck and five or six flagwomen and men who would catch people on both ends of the construction, as well as on the several rock roads that fed into traffic on the stub. Many days the construction workers would be there from 7:00 a.m. or earlier until 8:00 p.m.
Sometimes we would wait for up to 20 minutes for the pilot truck to return. Since it’s hard for me to sit still for even 30 seconds, I always, always, always turn off my truck, climb out, and walk up to talk to the person holding the stop sign and flag. I learned many years ago they appreciate the conversation.
One time last week I got out and spoke to a man who told me he was from Tama. He looked to be maybe 60 years old.
“Long drive,” I said.
“Not bad,” he replied. “Hour twenty, and the pay’s worth it.”
And then we talked about the weather.
I went over and put my elbows on the bed of my pickup, leaned into it, and he did too. “Don’t cut yourself,” I said, pointing to one of my rusty wheel wells.
He looked around and twirled a finger in the air. “Ya know, my grandpa used to come over here sometimes once a month or so and fill his pickup with coal, drive it back home, have enough for the family to burn, and maybe sell some.”
“Out in that timber there is an old coal mine,” I said. “Coal isn’t very good here, and when the diesel trains came in in the ’50s and 60s the mining dried up.
“Good morel hunting in there, I bet,” he said.
“Maybe, but I wouldn’t know--I’m not a good enough mushroom hunter,” I replied. He nodded.
“Banker over there owns all this land,” I said. “He’s rich enough to go fishing in Canada for four or so months every year. Has a cabin up there.”
“That would be nice,” the man said. “I was at some tribal conference in the Northern part of Michigan once and went fishing. The water was so, so clear. So beautiful, and you could drink it.”
“Not here,” I said. “And politicians tell us the water is clear when it isn’t.”
“Dirty as mud,” he said.
We watched some machinery go by, and I asked, “Is it interesting watching these machines do this work?
“Kinda, but I’ve seen it so much, I pretty much know everything they are doing and why.
And then we talked about the weather some more. The drought this time.
“Best job I ever had was at the Hiland Potato Chip plant in Des Moines working the assembly line,” he said.
He then described the process of how potato chips are made, in great detail. I wish I had turned my recorder on. Especially when he grinned as he talked about how the orange powder is blown onto cheese puffs.
“Smelled so wonderful,” he said. “The boss told us that we could have one free bag of chips a day, but we didn’t do that,” he laughed. “The potato chips were so warm and delicious, that sometimes we would sit at the end of the potato chip line, and just eat and eat until we couldn’t eat no more.”
He heard something on his radio, and I saw several giant road crew machines coming at us.
“Get going,” he said. “Don’t wait for the pilot truck or you’ll be here another hour,” and he trotted back to tell the lady behind me in line the same. We skedaddled.
I walked up to the slender white woman holding the stop sign and said “hot, isn’t it?”
“Not bad, I’m used to it, she replied. Blond, she appeared to be in her 20’s. She seemed sad.
“Where you from?” I asked.
“Ottumwa.”
“Pretty city,” I said. She shrugged.
“Do you work outside all year?” I asked.
She shook her head and said, “If we’re lucky eight months.”
“What do you do the other four months?”
“Some of us get temporary jobs. Others get unemployment for as long as they can--not our fault there’s no construction work in winter.”
I nodded. “What happens when it rains? Do you have to stand out here in it?”
“If it sprinkles, sure. But if it is pouring down they don’t want us out in it. Especially during thunderstorms. They’re very protective of us.”
“People ever get out and talk with you?”
“Sometimes, but not often. Sometimes when they’re mad when we stop them they get out and yell at us.”
“Why be mad at you, it isn’t your fault.
“I know.”
“I’m not mad,” I said.
“I know,” she said, smiling for the first time.
She held her stop sign like she was the queen, and it was her scepter.
White, and in her late 60’s or early 70’s, nature had etched deep lines into her face. She was lovely. Powerful.
“Where you from?” I asked.
“Eldon.”
“American Gothic. Grant Wood,” I said.
She was impressed.
“Pretty town.”
“Getting better. It was a tough town. For so, so, long. Railroad town. Men fighting other men. Beating wives up. Not so much anymore. A couple of good bars still.”
She looked around my shoulder when a bird started singing.
“Meadowlark,” she said.
“You a birdwatcher?
“Sometimes there’s nothin but them and me out here, and they make it more interesting.”
“You ever hear of the bird app Merlin?”
She looked at me, puzzled.
“It’s an app on your phone that identifies birds by their calls.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket, turned on the app, and she came to stand by my side and watched as Merlin did its thing, identifying the birds around us by their songs.
She pulled out her phone, stared into it, and said, “what’s that app again? I’ve got to download it.”
“Merlin. It’s free,” I said.
“No, it’s priceless.”
She downloaded the app, and together we watched her phone as it identified maybe a dozen birds before the pilot truck arrived.
She didn’t even look up from her phone as the pilot truck led me and the others behind me away.
The young Black woman, maybe in her late 20s or early 30s, and I talked like we had known each other for years. I don’t remember much of it; it was all small talk. Some of it was probably about the weather.
I noticed she had a notebook and a pen next to her fold-out chair.
“You a writer?” I asked.
“She sighed. “I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Ever since high school, but then a couple of kids got in the way.”
“But you still write,” I said, pointing at her notebook.
“Sure, have to. But I don’t know what to do with it.”
“Do you have good stories?”
“Lots,” she said.
“Family and friends like them?”
“They do. You a writer?”
“Yes.”
“What do you write?”
“Stories like you. Have you ever heard of Substack?”
“No.”
“It’s a newsletter system that lets people like us send out stories to people who want to read them. Sometimes if our stories are good, people pay us.”
“What? People like you and me can write good stories and people will read them and maybe pay us?”
“That’s how it works.”
“Wow. That could change everything for me!”
The pilot truck had returned, and I was the only one there to follow it. As I drove away, I looked into my rear-view mirror, and the young woman was sitting on her chair, writing in her notebook.
Check out my Substack focusing on my walks every morning at the Cedar Bluffs Recreation Area, called Cedar Creek Nature Notes. Also, I’m now retired from radio, and I’ve started a small PR consulting group called “Better PR,” with an associated Substack newsletter. I know many subscribers here are in the corporate world, in education, and in nonprofit companies and might value it.
I’ll help companies and nonprofits with PR but won’t work with political campaigns because I still want to write about them.
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I’m going to do better at choosing one of my fellow collaborative members to focus on their recent work. One of my favorite columns this week was Mary Swander’s “I Do.” It’s delightful.
Check out these other columnists at the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative:
Good piece on your great chats, Bob. Follow-up with that last flagger, the one who dreams of being a writer. Let’s hear (or read) what’s on her mind and in her notebook.
You make the world better by elevating everyone. Thank you. And simply damn fun to read too.