Letter to the editor: The road and bridge worker

Before I started working for the county I would hear comments such as “ Those workers for the county don’t do nothing” all they do is stand around holding the shovel all day long. But when I started working for R & B at Conejos County the only time I stood around holding the shovel was when I was trying to hold myself up to take a break from patching so many pot holes, trying to keep the people from the county satisfied, which as the months and years went by I came to the conclusion that no matter what I tried, that is something that is simply impossible to accomplish.

I had some people come up to me and thank me for doing a good job, which gives a person a little bit of encouragement to keep on trying to do better. But then again when you think you’re doing someone a favor you end up on the wrong side of their reasoning and you start to hear all kinds of complaints to the point that it makes one wonder if it’s all worth it.

When it snows at night and you look out the window and hear the grader or snow plow go by, you know you’ll be able to get to where you have to go because those county workers that don’t do nothing got up from a warm and cozy bed at 4:30 in the morning to make sure that your children got picked up by the school bus on time.

One thing that I did notice when I was standing around holding the shovel was that every time I stopped to take a break I was at a different part of the road from where I started and a lot of pot holes were patched, but the same person that passed by when I took my first break was the same person that passed by every time I took a break, which made me wonder if this person had anything else to do other than ride around on county roads trying to find something to complain about.

In the area that was assigned to me to maintain I had approximately 40 miles of gravel roads to keep graded, which is a constant battle especially in dry weather when there is no moisture on the bar pit to bring up material to resurface the road.

I’ve also heard comments that all those county workers do is scratch the roads. So I say to myself that you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. But when the road surface starts to get a little rough the complaints start coming in that the roads are too rough. It reminds me of the beaver that was so tired of walking until someone gave him a ride and then he started complaining about the bumps instead of being thankful.

I retired from the county in 2015 and I have been told by several people that they have missed me. Those are the people that appreciated my efforts and I thank them. Today I want to thank the crew that has been fixing the potholes, especially on County Road D.5. I know that you fix some today and tomorrow there are more where you were before but that is just to be expected on deteriorating old asphalt roads throughout the county and the nation as far as that goes. But the county commissioners have to find funds somewhere within the budget or through federal funds from President Trump’s promises to fix the infrastructure.

Let’s see what the Republican president, congress, senate, and county commissioners will do now that they have the rains. I have heard comments in the past, “ If it’s not broke don’t fix it.” Well the roads are broke and getting worse. Let’s see if they can be fixed before we have to go back to all gravel roads as in the past. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Chris Cisneros

Former Conejos county employee