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Off the Record: A festival for the end of road constuction?

Off the Record

In a city that loves to hold festivals, we should hold a festival for the end of the Broadway construction project.

This week crews have been painting the lane stripes and crosswalks on the repaved roads, and putting in sod in the spots where they dug up the grass medians. (Good luck getting that to grow on Broadway!)

Pretty soon they’ll be taking down the cones and we’ll be back to traffic as usual.

I have a better idea.

Instead of just picking up the cones, let’s have an “Auf Wiedersehen Conefest.” We can sell tickets for a special drawing. Whoever gets their name drawn gets to start at one end of the Broadway project and drive all the way to the other end, mowing down the cones as they go. Perhaps two people could be chosen, one to drive north and the other to drive south.

You know you’ve wanted to do that all summer, haven’t you. I know I have. What a great feeling that would be to lay a patch at one end of Broadway and zoom down the other end, cones flopping all over the road, or flying over the hood of your car. Exhiliarating!

But, like so many of my other great ideas, this one will probably go nowhere.

I had proposed, when they were celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Hermann Monument, that they sell small replicas of Hermann and call them “Peewee Hermanns.” They did sell the small replicas, but didn’t use the name.

When they had to take the statue of Hermann down for repairs a few years back, I suggested putting his head on a giant spring to make the World’s Largest Bobblehead. We could make a fortune charging people a dollar to pull on the rope to make his head nod back and forth. Again, no one listened. Anotehr opportunity wasted.

When New Ulm celebrated its Sesquicentennial, I proposed a novel event for the occasion — a Sesquicentennial Cracker Eating Contest. The rules are simple. The mayor, the governor and other dignitaries would have a race – they’d each put six Saltine crackers in their mouths at once, then see who could say “Sesquicentennial” first. Kids, you CAN try this at home. But you’ll have to clean up after yourselves.

Well, even if no one does organize an “Auf Wiedersehen Conefest,” it will be nice to have our main drag back to normal.

——

Kevin Sweeney has been the managing editor of The Journal since May 1985. A native of St. Paul, he worked at newspapers in LeSueur and Albert Lea before moving to New Ulm. Contact him at ksweeney@nujournal.com.

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