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Jewish World Review July 14, 2006 / 18 Tamuz, 5766 Cementimental Journey: Paving a good time, wish you were here By Gene Weingarten
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
When I read that the American Concrete Pavement Association was sponsoring an essay contest to celebrate its product, I reacted cynically. I mean, why not have an essay contest to celebrate mud? Or forks? Or those two rubber pads on the bottom of a toilet seat that hold it off the porcelain? Basically, I felt that concrete pavement is a pretty banal subject for a literary tribute. But then I read something that changed my mind completely: I read that the winner of the essay contest would get $500 in free gasoline. That is when I remembered the great debt we all owe to our noble friend, concrete pavement. According to the rules, the winning 500-word essay will include a reminiscence about a great family road trip, specifying how concrete pavement made that experience more enjoyable. Concrete Pavement: Humanity's Greatest Achievement By Gene Weingarten Well do I remember the first time my family set out on a vacation. We all were hideously injured because we unwisely drove on a road made of asphalt, which exploded. Naturally, it was many years later before my family tried again. This time, Dad decided that we would drive on the surfaces of rivers and lakes. What a disaster that was. After a brief attempt at driving up the side of buildings, and the short-lived, all-swampland journey, Dad finally figured it out. "Why don't we try some roads that are paved in concrete?" he asked. It turns out, that made all the difference. According to my research, concrete is an ancient, versatile substance. It is sometimes called the Rodney Dangerfield of building materials, because it is made out of dead fat guys. No, wait. Apparently, it is because it "gets no respect." That is because everyone takes it for granite. Ha-ha. Okay, I am done with the funny part of this essay now, and it is time to seriously make a bid for those 500 smackers. Here's a fact: Six billion tons of new concrete are produced on Earth every year, which is an entire ton for every human on the planet. Here's another fact: The average American unknowingly consumes 1.2 pounds of spider eggs a year. Also, the world record for continuous pogo stick jumping is 41 hours. My point, and I'm pretty sure I have one, is that we should not let extraneous facts confuse the important issue of the day: Concrete is found almost everywhere on Earth, and even beneath the sea, encasing the feet of deceased persons named Salvatore. But, mostly, it is the very ground we travel upon. Today, it is possible to go from Anchorage to Miami while never even for an instant having anything but concrete beneath you, assuming you are willing to poop in your car. Now, some naysayers may claim that the presence of so much paving is an affront to the God-given, natural beauty of our Earth. These people are missing something in their souls. America's concrete roads, when viewed with the eyes of a poet, are things of pastoral loveliness. As you drive 'cross our country, give up a shiver For the beauty of nature, and the love of your flag, And the roads 'neath your wheels, like a bucolic river Of calcium carbonate, polycarboxylic acid, fly ash, aluminum silicate, sulfonated naphthalene-formaldehyde condensates, soluble zinc salts, and granulated blast-furnace slag. All of this brings me back to the important, rule-satisfying theme of this essay, which is the great vacation trips my family and I have taken on roadways made of concrete, as opposed to other, laughably inferior, types of paving material. Dad is long gone now, but his wisdom lives on, infused in me like extruded wet-mix, low-tensile, high-slump, fiber-reinforced slurry that has been pressure-loaded into me via hydraulic nozzle. This summer, I plan to drive my family to Concrete, Wash., the only town in America named after the greatest building material known to man. Either there, or to Sacramento, home of the Asphalt Museum, which I will firebomb.
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Gene Weingarten writes the Below the Beltway humor column for The Washington Post. To comment, please click here.
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