Post by Chris_Wendt on May 26, 2011 14:21:13 GMT -5
Kicking the can down the road is one of my personal favorite analogies. It refers to the leisurely activity of repeatedly kicking a can as a person walks along a bucolic byway, without much purpose other than, well…what else is there to do while strolling a county lane? In current usage, “kicking the can” refers to certain actions taken, usually by governing bodies, which do not address an issue directly, nor solve any real problems, but which do serve to move the issues or problems along into some future time to be reckoned with, preferably, by successor members of the that governing body, or the course of history.
Yesterday I actually was presented with a golden opportunity to play kick the can. The Thirty Ninth Street Bridge spans the Sunnyside Railroad Yard and connects Steinway Street and Northern Boulevard in Astoria/Long Island City with Skillman Avenue in Sunnyside Queens. It is about a half mile long. I had taken the #7 Train from Woodside to 40th Street, to walk to work over the 39th Street Bridge.
There it was, at the foot of the bridge…a tin can!
There is a nice 6-foot wide sidewalk on either side of the bridge. I was on the westerly side, to get the sun on my face, and this also put the wind coming across from my right toward the retaining wall by the rail yard. I started kicking that can, and the combination of a favorable cross wind and the slope of the bridge kept the can from rolling into the street. I was experiencing that relaxing purposeless preoccupation for the better part of a quarter mile on the up-side of the bridge to its crest.
Off to my left was the city skyline, the iconic Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, as well as that beautiful green glass Citigroup building in LI City, and the distinctive Citigroup headquarters building across the East River in Manhattan. Immediately below were dozens of LIRR, Amtrak, and NJ Transit tracks and trains. I paused at the crest to take in the sights before continuing to kick the can on the downside of bridge.
Not unexpectedly, owing to the down-slope, with one kick from me, gravity took hold of the can and it rolled nearly the full quarter mile down to Northern Boulevard out ahead of me. Had there been any meaningful purpose whatsoever to my kicking that can, a quarter mile up hill in 6-foot increments, or a quarter mile down hill in one spectacularly lucky roll, I may have felt some sense of accomplishment from this small nonsensical interlude.
Nah; instead of some vague sense of accomplishment, I was reminded of my days on the school board…when we so often kicked the can down the road rather than actually solving many real problems. This then caused me to wonder, to myself (and now to you), what expedients the school board will come up with for next year’s budget…which teams are “up” for being cut, what excuses will be dragged out and dusted-off for not having full-day Kindergarten, and, how will the Tax Cap be ‘spun’ to make every local problem seem like Albany caused it, rather than having been the inevitable result of perpetually kicking the can down the road instead of restraining and controlling spending on administrative costs, and for the salaries and benefits of school employees.
Wonder what happens when the can-kicking stops?
Regards,
Chris Wendt
Yesterday I actually was presented with a golden opportunity to play kick the can. The Thirty Ninth Street Bridge spans the Sunnyside Railroad Yard and connects Steinway Street and Northern Boulevard in Astoria/Long Island City with Skillman Avenue in Sunnyside Queens. It is about a half mile long. I had taken the #7 Train from Woodside to 40th Street, to walk to work over the 39th Street Bridge.
There it was, at the foot of the bridge…a tin can!
There is a nice 6-foot wide sidewalk on either side of the bridge. I was on the westerly side, to get the sun on my face, and this also put the wind coming across from my right toward the retaining wall by the rail yard. I started kicking that can, and the combination of a favorable cross wind and the slope of the bridge kept the can from rolling into the street. I was experiencing that relaxing purposeless preoccupation for the better part of a quarter mile on the up-side of the bridge to its crest.
Off to my left was the city skyline, the iconic Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, as well as that beautiful green glass Citigroup building in LI City, and the distinctive Citigroup headquarters building across the East River in Manhattan. Immediately below were dozens of LIRR, Amtrak, and NJ Transit tracks and trains. I paused at the crest to take in the sights before continuing to kick the can on the downside of bridge.
Not unexpectedly, owing to the down-slope, with one kick from me, gravity took hold of the can and it rolled nearly the full quarter mile down to Northern Boulevard out ahead of me. Had there been any meaningful purpose whatsoever to my kicking that can, a quarter mile up hill in 6-foot increments, or a quarter mile down hill in one spectacularly lucky roll, I may have felt some sense of accomplishment from this small nonsensical interlude.
Nah; instead of some vague sense of accomplishment, I was reminded of my days on the school board…when we so often kicked the can down the road rather than actually solving many real problems. This then caused me to wonder, to myself (and now to you), what expedients the school board will come up with for next year’s budget…which teams are “up” for being cut, what excuses will be dragged out and dusted-off for not having full-day Kindergarten, and, how will the Tax Cap be ‘spun’ to make every local problem seem like Albany caused it, rather than having been the inevitable result of perpetually kicking the can down the road instead of restraining and controlling spending on administrative costs, and for the salaries and benefits of school employees.
Wonder what happens when the can-kicking stops?
Regards,
Chris Wendt