Hurry up and wait

DOVER-FOXCROFT — Maine, like any northern state, can tell the change of the seasons by two things: the leaves begin to bloom on the trees, and the bright orange construction barrels return to the streets.
Nowhere has this been more evident in Piscataquis County than on the .75-mile stretch of West Main Street in Dover-Foxcroft, where construction crews are working to replace the water main, the services to the houses and businesses, as well as replace the crumbling street with a new road bed.
When this project finishes in October, it will be a welcome sight for motorists in the area (that being said, motorists will be left to contend with the other side of Route 15 — from Foxbrook Variety to the Charlotte White Center — being torn up as well).
However, until West Main Street is finally repaved, people will have to deal with long waiting lines on either end of the construction as flaggers dictate who is going through the obstacle course. Does anyone else find it odd that flaggers have become the most powerful people in Dover-Foxcroft in a matter of mere months?
On any given day, it is these flaggers that can have logging trucks, cars, buses and semis backed up from the Foxcroft Academy tennis courts all the way to McDonalds and beyond. That alone is the same length of the construction zone, if not longer.
Yet, I’ve noticed during my multiple trips through there that everyone seems to be taking the construction in stride. No one is ever yelling at the flaggers, honking their horns or being downright irritable and making an unpleasant time even more unbearable.
Last Friday on my way back into Dover-Foxcroft, I got stuck in the backed-up line at 3:25 p.m. at the east entrance of McDonalds and was forced to wait my turn to meander my way past the yellow and gray Volvo front-end loaders and excavators. Here were the rest of my thoughts as I waited.
3:28 p.m.: West Main Street turned into a three-lane road as a car decided the right shoulder would now become the second eastbound lane. Where it ended up is beyond me. I was hoping to see it slid into the ditch and stuck.
3:31 p.m.: A white Chevrolet pick-up truck is turning the old video game Frogger into a real-life event, as he hops from the McDonalds driveway to Brothers Chevy, and from there to A.E. Robinson’s gas station in between on-coming traffic. Out of nowhere, another truck pulled out of A.E. Robinson shortly before the white Chevy got there. No collision, but the second driver looks none too pleased at the ignorance of the driver in the white Chevrolet.
3:32 p.m.: Line moved for the first time. I made it up to the eastern entrance at the A.E. Robinson gas station. The truck is now back in park.
3:34 p.m.: I don’t know how an emergency vehicle would make it through the construction, even with the lights and sirens. And what about the volunteer firefighters in the surrounding towns that might be stuck in that mess? If a call goes out that they are needed at the station, how do they get through that mess?
3:36 p.m.: The white Chevrolet makes another move, this time from A.E. Robinson all the way to Foxcroft Academy. It’s people like that, the impatient ones, that make me the most irate. Just wait in line people and take your time.
3:37 p.m.: Movement yet again.
3:39 p.m.: I was four cars away from making it through the construction. Instead, the flaggers stopped the line just short at the FA tennis courts. The truck is yet again back in park.
3:45 p.m.: I take that back. There’s three signs to summer. Blooming trees, construction cones and the sound of a Harley Davidson roaring down the street.
3:47 p.m.: More movement!
3:49 p.m.: I made it to the three-way intersection of Main Street and North Avenue. Total time in the construction was 24 minutes.
4:13 p.m.: In the same amount of time it took me to go 1.5 miles from McDonalds to the Main Street/North Avenue intersection, I traveled 23 miles to the intersection of Routes 221 and 43 just north of Hudson. Hopefully I remember not to take Route 15 home this fall when construction starts up on the east side of town.