Monday, May 4, 2020

Exhibit #372 of Why Backroads Can't Have Nice Things

Maybe I should change the "nice" to "state government decreed for safety."

Over the past year, the STOP sign where our blacktop county road enters the blacktop state lettered highway...has been deteriorating. And it's not due to weather!


I can't even count the bullet holes. I don't have enough fingers and toes. Most disturbing is the BACKGROUND of this taboo target. IT'S A FREAKIN' HIGHWAY! Where cars drive by! Sure, the bullets will probably go over the sedans and the illegal side-by-sides. But anybody in an SUV or truck could be in the line of fire! That STOP sign is now like Robert Duvall as Lucky Ned Pepper in the original True Grit, who said, "Rooster, I'm shot to pieces."

The bright 1:00 sun does not do justice to the bullet holes. At first, maybe after the first five appeared, I was willing to give the shooter the benefit of the doubt. Not for the careless nose-thumbing to safety, but to the intent. I believed, as Hick postulated, that perhaps it was somebody sighting in his gun. From the slight rise further back, before that section of road reaches the STOP sign. But seriously. How many guns would a person need to have, or how bad must their sighting talents be, to put THIS MANY holes in the STOP sign?

At least my new used iPhone 8 held onto this picture so you'd believe it happened. This is two miles from Mailbox Row. Anybody doing this has driven by our creek area. No other turn-off until they get here. I'm pretty sure it's not somebody who lives in between. Since they have acreage to use for "sighting in a gun."

Seems more like mischief to me. But as long as this STOP sign is here, they're not shooting at our mailboxes or the Bus-Waiting Shack.

8 comments:

  1. It looks like the bullets would not obey the law, they clearly did not stop.

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    1. It's a case of "Like shooter, like bullet." Both scoffing the law!

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  2. Makes me so mad I could spit. What is wrong with people?

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    1. I ask myself that all the time! I haven't come up with a logical answer yet.

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  3. Looking at the holes - not very good shots for the most part. A lot of edge damage, but it looks like smaller caliber stuff, not too many shotgun slugs or 45/70 holes wandering through it either. Probably someone out testing out their 9mm or something similar. Seen some of those out in this neck of the woods at times too. Especially further up north where I used to live.

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    1. I've lived out here 22 years, and this past year is when the problem started. There might have been a stray hole every few years, but nothing like this. On the other hand, there are fewer bashed mailboxes now...

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  4. Sighting has nothing to do with it, they are using the sign for target practise. Because they're too lazy to set up their own hay-bale target way out in the middle of a field where no innocent bystanders can get hurt. I don't like guns.

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    1. Even if I would happen upon then in the act, my new used iPhone 8 would not allow me to take and keep a picture of their crime!

      Guns are only as good or bad as the user, like a car is only as good or bad as the driver.

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