Each year around this time, you have a choice once you’ve been swallowed by a pothole.
You can grimace, shake your head, holler at the steering wheel, curse general services or Mother Nature, make an appointment with your mechanic, whatever it takes to bring your equilibrium back where it belongs.
You can also veer left, toward the center yellow line, or right, beyond the white line and onto the shoulder. That’s not recommended, of course, because it’s dangerous and the police don’t appreciate it when drivers zig-zag like rally racers to avoid potholes on city streets.
Or, you can pull over and face this annual pain in the keister with courage. That’s the answer. Look the pothole right in the eye, wherever that is, and have some fun with it. Diminish its power. Play a game. See a shape, your own unique version.
After all, potholes are a rite of passage each spring after all the freezing and thawing and countless trips by city plows have laid a beating on paved roads.
“It’s the time that comes at the end of winter when we’re putting out sap buckets and there are potholes to contend with,” said Chip Chesley, the director at Concord General Services. “This is the good news, bad news, every year here in Concord.”
That’s the point. Turn this tradition into good news. Recently, after a few frame-rattling clunks and bangs, the plan began to take shape. As did the potholes.
One in Penacook, on the road exiting a coffee drive-thru, was the spitting image of Tennessee. Another, sitting between a pair of car dealerships on Manchester Street, looked like Texas. Still another, a submarine.
Cloud shapes have always been a good setting for this game, seeing things that perhaps only you see, while others see something else.
But this game serves a greater purpose. This helps you become one with the pothole.
“They increase in numbers this time of year, but we repair them throughout the entire year,” Chesley said. “The freeze-thaw cycle is how we pick up greater potholes during the year, and it’s pretty uniform across the city.”
Chesley had data. He said we’re in the peak time for pothole repairs, which run over a six-week period, from February through March. He said his staff, broken into two crews, annually fills more than 1,500 potholes.
He said capping those holes takes 78 tons of hot mix, or hot asphalt, the lone solution that will prevent the potholes from resurfacing.
“It’s all done by hand,” Chesley said. “The hot mix makes a permanent repair.”
Besides the patches, there’s more help on the way. This week, the city began its annual repaving program starting with Foster Street, Granite Avenue, Curtice Avenue, and Prospect Street. The asphalt will be ground down and a new coat of fresh, smooth blacktop laid down.
If residents think their street needs to be on this year’s paving list, they can submit a request at the city’s website at concordnh.gov/seeclickfix.
For the streets that won’t get re-done this year, it’s patch time.
Most of the potholes in and around Concord were an inch deep or deeper. They collect rainwater, each looking like a watering hole for hyenas on one of those animal documentaries.
Some were a foot across, others 15, but that hardly mattered. Their depth was the killer.
That’s how Leonard DiFrancesca of Penacook felt. His windshield cracked recently driving on Lilac Street. He blamed the rough road near his apartment.
He later acknowledged that his windshield “had a faulty seal. One of the corners was not hooked up right.”
Lilac was bumpy, no question, and DiFrancesca complained to the city. He wanted a smoother road. Or potholes filled. He wanted reimbursement for his windshield.
He’s still waiting for a return phone call.
Meanwhile, vehicles are being bullied, in many different ways.
“We’re finding all sorts of stuff,” said Jeff Chaplain, who owns Village Street Gulf in Penacook. “Bad wheel bearings, broken springs, issues with ball joints, alignment issues, flat tires.
“It’s the same as it is every year.”
So play the game. Enjoy yourself. The 15-foot pothole on North State Street, in front of Blossom Hill Cemetery, looked like a baby wrapped in a blanket.
A hole on Old Turnpike Road in Concord resembled a key, maybe a cannon. Plenty of potholes are peeking out on Airport and Manor roads and most other streets, plenty of places to play the game, to see what your mind can create from something that could cause $1,000 in damage, according to one area tire dealer.
Maybe you’ll see the Granite State. Or a household item. Or Europe.
It defines us, like sap, foliage and big-league auto racing.
“Not really,” Chesley said, when asked if he’s bombarded with complaints. “Most people understand it’s part of spring in New Hampshire.”