Bituminous Bouquet

Maybe I should have married a garage mechanic. Aside from the obvious benefit of continuous car care, there would be the aroma of a man with petroleum in his system.
I’ve always been partial to bus fumes, gasoline, the bouquet of summertime dusty roads that have been freshly oiled. It’s probably genetic. My grandfather was a geologist for the Sun Oil Company, after all.

          So my delight at seeing men on big yellow machines outside my door this week was two-fold. Not only was our Baja-like road finally getting a much-needed repair, our small neighborhood was filled with the scent of hot asphalt. 

     When we were buying our house, we read its specs and said to each other, “Look, honey! It’s on a private road!” This sounded ideal, moving as we were from the city. And as a dead-end street with only three houses, it is quiet. However, as it turns out, the real implication of “private” is that while the town had been meticulous about plowing and sanding in the winter months, it is under no obligation to repair it. 

Over the eighteen years we’ve been here, our road has experienced that many years of frost heaves and rains, undermining its base. The surface had become one giant washboard, challenging to both car suspensions and snowplows, and as a result, chipped away and gouged. 

     

     One routine task before mowing the lawn has been to gather up the larger chunks that have found their way into our grass. 
      All visitors are reminded to depart at no faster than two miles an hour if they value their vehicle. 

          By some act of providence, our town found the wherewithal to put down a coating of hot asphalt in places, filling in the larger holes and smoothing things out a bit. We can now drive up our street without checking our teeth for loose fillings afterwards.

          This afternoon I may look like I’m outside raking the front yard, but I’ll really be there to savor any remaining aromas from our new road.