Our Tax Dollars at Work

Nearly 45 years ago, when I first moved to Oak Park, Illinois, it was (and still is) a beautiful, well maintained town but the alleys were already old and sometimes seriously out of repair. Passage of time and stress generated by ferocious Midwestern winters haven't helped and so a few years ago the Village started replacing the alleys which run between the backs of the buildings on some blocks. No one is sure how these decisions are made but - since all the alleys couldn't be replaced at once - a system was set in place whereby random blocks would be done here and there over a period of time. Yes, now there was a Man Going Around Taking Names and this year OUR neighborhood's number came up. Our time had come and the work commenced.

Men at Work

Promptly at the stroke of 8 a.m. every weekday morning, the Song of the Jackhammer was heard through the land, shaking us retirees and other awake. I am here to testify that these guys worked like beavers building a dam. No slouching or dilly-dallying around and it wasn't easy. I suppose that someone had selected October for this work because usually autumn weather here is fine and conducive to strenuous tasks. Alas, no sooner had "our guys" (as they came to be known) begun then so did a record-breaking 13-day onslaught of rain. Every day, as the rest of us scurried about with umbrellas or snuggled indoors, our guys worked like Trojans, braving rain and dark, chilly weather ... to say nothing of ankle-deep autumn leaves which were cascading to the ground and becoming slippery and wet.

At First, I Was Not Happy

Since my customary mode of exit from our building's property is through the very alley that was being replaced, I was at first frustrated by having to change my procedure. It also took me a while to find where "somebody" had "hidden" our dumpsters (right there beside our building in plain sight and only about 20 feet away from the very back door I was walking through). I was upset because I assumed that bad weather would delay progress on a project which might be snowed under and not finished until April. ("Our tax dollars at work!" I would grumble.)

However, as time went by and the job moved ahead beautifully, I became rather caught up in the spirit of the thing. After our guys had called it quits at the end of the day and gone home to get warm, I loved to go out there and see how things were going. Each day's hard work resulted in the completion of another phase. They had dug down a couple feet and replaced the underground pipes and gravel, graded the new cement pavement to perfection and even replaced the curbing and certain adjacent areas. Clearly, this was a well-engineered and complex project and I must say that I am impressed.

It may sound silly, but darned if I am not uplifted by the dramatic improvement to our neighborhood afforded by the new alley. I enjoy walking though it every evening and know that it will make life easier for us all during the snow and icy months ahead. I am proud of what our guys did and also our own contribution as taxpayers. Yes, those were our tax dollars that paid for something which 30 years from now may still benefit people we don't even know yet.

I cannot help but feel a little wistful when I wonder how much could be achieved if only half of our Federal tax dollars could be used for something constructive like paving, rebuilding and repairing this country's crumbling and often dangerous infrastructure. If that was the case, then not only would hundreds of domestic jobs be created here but thirty years from now we could be proud of what we spent to leave a better country for those generations following us. Wouldn't that be better than spending hard-earned taxpayer dollars to invade other people's lands and blow THEIR infrastructures out of the water?

I think so but - as Dennis Miller would say - that may be just MY opinion although I suspect there are other American taxpayers who feel the way I do.

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