The Road Patrol

 Yesterday I saw a picture on facebook that Tom Isern posted here of a road patrol grader displayed near Forman, I think. It brought memories, and one time I wrote a poem with seven syllable lines about my days working with one. It might not be very good, but here it is along with his picture plus one I took at a museum in Georgia.

The Road Patrol

The Greene Township road patrol,

scaled small enough for horses

to pull, sat rusting in trees

until someone searched it out

and hooked a tractor to it.

Here’s where I enter the scene:

driver, pulling straight away

while Dad stood on rear platform

working blade angle and depth

to smooth the washboard bumps

that banged and chattered a car’s

chassis so hard your teeth shook

and made you wish for a rain

to fall and soften the road bed

so that the little grader

blade could grab some bite and cut

the rough grade to a smooth shave.

The times cried, “Do-it-yourself

if you want to change your world,

no one will do it for you!”