There are many ways to measure the health of a community. Some people look at voter turnout. Others look at economic indicators. Me? I look at the utility poles.
Yes, the utility poles . . . . those tall wooden guardians whose sole purpose is to keep the lights on, the internet flowing, and the town not engulfed in a spectacular electrical fireball. Once upon a time, they stood with dignity. Today, they look like the aftermath of a kindergarten craft project gone rogue.
Somewhere along the line, a certain segment of the population decided that the highest form of civic engagement is hammering a rusty nail into a pole carrying enough voltage to turn them into a cautionary tale. They march out with their yard-sale flyers, lost-cat posters, and “gently used sofa” ads like they’re performing a public service. As if the linemen, the people who actually keep civilization functioning, will climb up there, see a faded flyer for a 2019 bake sale, and think, “Ah yes, this is why I risk my life.”
And the flyers never come down. They cling to the poles like barnacles on a shipwreck, forming a kind of archaeological record of local desperation. Future historians will dig up a Scottdale utility pole and conclude that early 21st-century Americans communicated exclusively through damp paper and staples.
But while one half of the population is busy turning public infrastructure into a scrapbook, the other half is spiraling into a different kind of civic confusion — the growing belief among young people that the police are following them around town.
You’ve heard it.
You’ve seen it online.
You may have even witnessed it in the wild:
“I swear that cop followed me for three whole blocks.”
Three blocks. In a town with one main road. Where everyone is going the same direction because there is literally nowhere else to go.
Somehow, the leap from “we happened to be driving on the same street” to “I am the target of a coordinated surveillance operation” is instantaneous. It’s like watching anxiety logic. The officer in question is probably just trying to get out of town to Sheetz before the MTO line becomes biblical, but sure, let’s assume it’s a covert operation centered around your 2009 Honda Civic with the mismatched bumper.
It’s a fascinating contrast, really.
On one side:
The Utility Pole Vandals, blissfully unaware that they’re creating a papier-mâché fire hazard.
On the other:
The Paranoia Patrol, convinced they’re starring in a low-budget spy thriller where the local police department has nothing better to do than tail them past the Dollar General.
Both groups, in their own ways, are absolutely certain the world revolves around them.
The pole-posters believe the entire town needs to know about their nephew’s band playing at the local club.
The paranoid twenty-somethings believe the police are tracking their every move, despite the fact that the officer is probably just trying to get to the station before shift change.
It’s two flavors of self-importance served on the same civic platter.
And here the rest of us are, stuck in the middle, trying to maintain the fragile illusion that we live in a functioning society . . . . one where public infrastructure isn’t used as a scrapbook and where young adults understand that being followed for three blocks is not evidence of a surveillance state but simply the reality of living in a town with a single arterial road.
If civilization collapses, it won’t be because of politics or economics.
It’ll be because half the population is stapling trash to power poles while the other half is convinced they’re being tailed by the FBI every time they go to Walmart.
And honestly?
That feels about right.
