Sometimes aggravating situations resolve and even add something to our lives. I'm not talking about tragedies, like the murder this summer of Roland Park resident Molly Macauley. I am talking about aggravations, like the panoply of utility issues and construction we have had on our street over the past five years.
We've had so many that they blur into one massive construction project. On just one recent day, we were surrounded with tree removal on the south and east, construction on the north and west, including 18-wheelers and heavy dump trucks out front.
Our new next-door neighbors for three years have been doing a meticulous renovation on their 100-year-old house. They have scraped every inch of wallpaper and paint off the interior. Third floor to basement, they have restored French doors, pocket doors and original molding. They've expanded bathrooms and modernized the kitchen. They have kept the original footprint of the historic house intact, and restored columns, ceiling and floors of a wide side porch.
This restoration has been respectful of a grand, historic century-old home. Other fine examples come to mind, including a few on our street. Early on, this couple also invested in good plantings. They hired a landscape architect and planted native shrubs as well as stately evergreens plus salt-resistant Leyland cypresses on Cold Spring Lane.
This month we have new across-the-street neighbors, a vibrant young couple with two adorable small children. We have not had little ones nearby since the previous owners moved in with three. Nothing boosts morale like "the young." Because the new family moves in this week, renovation has gone at a fast clip. Fleets of work trucks have been respectful of the tight parking situation on our narrow, one-way street. They have not parked on the no-parking side, and they have left space at the entrance sidewalks of other houses. They have searched for nails every day, a boon after an unforgettable and invisible nail spill some years back.
Despite bringing guest parking difficulties, these bumper-to-bumper pickups bring a certain peace of mind. The trucks and workers provide security all day and often into the evening.
Baltimore City prompted more trucks as water meters were replaced. Our meter, like most things at this house, was unusual. Backhoes came. Men dug and dug in 90-degree heat. After a day of work, it turned out that, besides a one-inch feed line to the house, the coupling between the meter and the pipe was not something the meter installation contractor stocked. Parts had to be ordered. Department of Public Works had to give written notice to the homes where water would be shut off during the replacement. When parts arrived, the coupling did not go in easily, but it only took a day. The backhoe stayed the following weekend. More protection.
A new LED streetlight in front of our house was so bright it prevented our light-activated porch fixture from working. Not a good thing after Molly Macauley's murder and several street robberies this summer.
I called 311. The operator said to call BGE, because the light pole was theirs. BGE came immediately to check it out, then nothing happened. I mentioned this to a friend who works for Constellation. Several days later, he forwarded an email saying that it was a city light and gave me the city contact.
Because my Internet was down, I phoned that person: another responsive man, who came the same day. Turned out it WAS a BGE issue. Two more pronto men came and scheduled immediate steps to decrease the intensity and spread some light into a dark alley, one where criminals were caught this year. Those BGE workers, Earl and Barry, reminded me of the "old" super-responsive utility company I knew for many years, not the company slow to respond to derecho outages a few summers ago. Things can improve.
Ditto with Verizon. Early the same week I had spent five hours on the phone with Verizon tech support and with our tech support people for our wireless router. While all were earnest, two actually made things worse. I finally gave up at 1 a.m. and went to bed.
The next morning a Verizon technician named Joe arrived. He quickly determined that the thick telephone line from the house to the backyard pole needed replacing. The last time it had been examined was in June 1984. A neighbor's dead tree took it and part of the power line down, along with our garage roof, eight brick pillars and four fence sections. Talk about aggravation! Repairs took all summer.
But this August, hearing a graphic-artist-turned-skilled-Verizon-technician say, as he concluded his work, "I love my job!" instantly brightened a very aggravating week. Despite concurrent election theatrics, it also brought hope. We need more skilled, intelligent and dedicated work for the common good in Baltimore City and America.