When I was in high school, we had a teacher who walked the school between classes humming fragments of classical music to himself. We, of course, nicknamed him the Hummer, fodder, as adults are, for occasional teen-comments about their weirdness. “We’ll never be like the Hummer,” was the always subtext.
But I’m guessing that you, too, often hum, whistle or sing (sotto voce) a soundtrack as you walk. It can, of course, weary us to distraction, a song-worm you can’t get out of your head. Still, sometimes it’s pleasurable company, summoned by motion and often plumbed from recent listening or watching.
Some of my recent “tracks” have come from an immersion in “Get Back,” Peter Jackson’s documentary film opening into the “room where it happened” for the Beatles. But here’s the kink: It’s the before-getting-down-to-work Beatles’ riffing on old standards that’s in my head. Chuck Berry in particular. And so: “Nadine.”
“Nadine, honey is that you?
Oh, Nadine, honey is that you?
Seems like every time I catch you
You’re up to something new.”
You will find, I think, that the beat and the lyrics align wonderfully with a walking pace. And in this era of easy access to songs, finding “Nadine” is simple as asking Alexa.
Application
A salt street on a local road last winter. Brunswick is shifting from sand and salt to salt only on roads and walkways. Sandy Stott photo
It is now a considerable leap to reach the promised topic of this column, but here we are: It is last winter, and I am walking a small street in Meadowbrook. I am atop of broad skunk-stripe streak in the road and my footing has gone crunchy. It has my attention. My mind leaps; here … as we near the edge in this column, we go:
“Saline, honey is that you?
Oh, Saline, honey is that you?
Seems like every time I catch you
You’re up to something new.”
The street dips; a small culvert runs below, directing a trickle of water to a brushy vale. Saline is up to something new in this trickle leading down into Coffin Ice Pond and the Mere Brook watershed. The broad stripe of salt underfoot will be washed there by the melt and rain, and, as I crunch along, I wonder if we can’t be more selective in our salting against ice.
What we can do
In a December 2021 iteration, I wondered briefly about Brunswick’s and other towns’ use of salt. Happily, that wondering brought me a note from fellow resident Josh Katz, who, during his career, worked as a hydrogeologist for Maine DOT, where he held responsibility for remediation of salt-contaminated wells. Might we join Public Works Director Jay Astle and explore how deepening public understanding of the costs of salt use — ecological and economic — might help us arrive at a happy medium?, Josh wondered.
We asked for and had a good conversation with Jay, who was equally interested; the three of us then agreed to reconvene this fall to devise a plan and some public education to support it. We did so, and now we look forward to a November appearance before the Town Council. Here, on the edge of the salt season, we also have these thoughts and questions for you, the driving and walking public.
Brunswick is entering year four of a shift from sand and salt to salt only on our roads and walkways. Salt has proved more efficient, and the shift has eliminated a necessary spring sand clean-up, where excess sand is also a town- and watershed-wide problem. The three years of experience offer some sense of how we may reduce our salt-print:
At the core of any initiative lies this fact and an attendant question: Our Public Works Department endures a considerable amount of pressure to have our roads bare quickly. We are the source of that pressure. Might we all resolve to drive more cautiously while crews are working to clear the roads? Slow driving on snow is safe driving, and safety lies at the heart of all winter road treatments.
Given experience, might it be possible to identify sections of road that need and then receive less salt?
Salt can be a cumulative problem; once in groundwater its presence grows in proportion to salt seeping down from the surface. Keeping our use of it at a minimum will help keep our wells safe from salt.
The road I was walking near my home last winter can serve as example: Yes, limiting the salt in road-care would ask slower navigation, but that’s already part of its being a neighborhood. No one need hurry through here. And yes, we walkers would have to navigate with more care, but we’re Mainers who already know the short strides and traction devices of ice-walking.
As I walked, “Saline” followed me up out of the dip and kept on with her refrain. Perhaps she will turn out to be a mild contagion in your mind, too, a question for whatever stretch of street you’re on: Need she be up to something new here?
Sandy Stott is a Brunswick, Maine resident, chair of the town’s Conservation Commission, and a member of Brunswick Topsham Land Trust’s Board of Directors. He writes for a variety of publications. He may be reached at fsandystott@gmail.com.
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