Winters in Idaho have always been long and often hard. This year was no exception from a weather standpoint, but from a human standpoint it was probably the longest and hardest many of us have seen in a long time. The whole pandemic hung above us like an avalanche waiting to break loose.
Some of us got by okay, others got swept away.
One thing that was noticeable to me was the impressive response rate of the city street department when it came to snow removal. In the past, we were lucky to see a snowplow come down our street maybe once or twice the entire winter and usually only after the street had been snow-choked and icy for weeks. This year the city was right on top of it and our streets were not only plowed the day after big storms, but our driveways were even scooped out by frontend loaders. It was interesting to see all the cars that failed to heed the parking orders and get buried.
From past experiences, they thought they had days to comply. Sometimes progress can catch you off guard!
Speaking of cars and progress, has anyone else noticed the boom in car washes in town? There must be some new tax incentive or something because it seems like a new car wash appeared every month! I bet that the car-to-car wash ratio in Idaho Falls has got to be way above the national average.
They say that cleanliness is next to godliness, so I guess that is a good thing for us.
Hopefully, as the pandemic lightens up, some of our civic services like the department of motor vehicles will come back online. I can understand all the social distancing safety precautions put in place but frankly cannot fathom why they can’t answer a simple phone call. Do they know something that we don’t know about Covid being transmitted over the phone?
Another sign of progress is the ever-expanding fiber-optic network in town. Not to say that I minded paying a small fortune to a private company for lackluster internet speeds from data squeezed through old cable TV lines, but the performance of the new city fiber optic is beyond compare. Given how much everyone was forced to use the internet from home this past year, the information highway needs all the lanes we can build for it.
Sadly, the pandemic has meant that some businesses have had to shut down. Whether or not they will ever be able to reopen is unknown. Making a living as a small business has never been easy but maybe not being tied to a top-heavy corporate structure has allowed for better adaptability by some smaller businesses.
It is so strange to drive by Edwards Cinemas and see the empty lots. Fortunately, our local theatres have been able to adapt and hang on. Maybe someday the movie studios will even start to make movies again that aren’t all based on retreading comic books.
Hopefully, as the snow starts to melt, the city can spring back to life as well. Snake River Landing is full of all kinds of projects waiting to blossom and downtown has projects like the Celt distillery ready to hopefully help us return to normalcy.
It would be nice to be caught off-guard by progress!
Click here to read more of our March issue.