Pres. Day, Geo. Washington’s National Rd. & Our National Infrastructure Are All Tied Together

It’s Presidents Day, the result of the previous Lincoln and Washington Birthday Days falling prey to downsizing! I suggest we send the living presidents an e-card of some sort; maybe a congratulations or sympathy card?

The Delaware Memorial Bridge
(Wikipedia photo sited below)

The National Road, U.S. Route 40 aka Victory Highway runs through the middle of my fair city of Indianapolis and maybe yours! After all it’s 2,285.74 miles long, running through cities from Atlantic City, New Jersey to Park City, Utah. It once stretched to San Francisco but evidently also fall prey to downsizing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_40).

The uniqueness of the National Rd. has always fascinated me. But recently while traveling on it in Indianapolis near Sherman (Not a president, but a real pyromaniac) Avenue my fascination turned to grief. It’s been a hard winter for the Victory Highway here in Indy. It has ripped away the pavement in places exposing the brick pavement of some era. I’ve seen this before, but this time I could see the shiny rails of the old Indianapolis Metro Area Inter Urban “train” system, something I hadn’t seen. I’m guessing road crews aren’t going to be able to fix this with just Cold Patch, though they may try.

Washington (a President) St., as we call the National Rd. in Indy, has seen better days. But that can also be said of many roads across our nation; part of our nation’s infrastructure, which has been declining due to a lack of funds for maintenance according to a myriad of engineers – some of whom will no longer drive across certain bridges...

I wonder where all the tax funds for infrastructure maintenance may have gone(Vegas?). Perhaps those who may be guilty of fraud at different levels are seeing it come back to bite their/our roads and bridges? In high school I remember being taught that we had an even greater highway system than Rome at its highest point. Now I wonder, sadly, if  greed and fraud in our country might cause our infrastructure and other things to go the way of the of the former Roman Empire?

To a degree the doomsayers may be right about our country paralling the downfall of Rome, but not necessarily in the areas they tend to cite: an increase in sexual immorality and other partying-related activity. Nope, maybe the real keys to decline are the stained hands dipping into the common tills in offices and back allies from coast to coast; like a National Highway paved by the theft of public funds. Personally, I hope all of us can find ways of stomping out the corruption and graft in all our institutions. This just might save our infrastructure and our children and our world. Let’s start stomping where we’re standing and keep spreading out, seriously! The tax returns we file might be one good place for some to start?!