An eye to the future

This spring two long awaited scheduled projects will finally get started. For New Prague it will be the Main Street project, the reconstruction of the street, sidewalks and replacing of utilities underneath the street, some of which are nearly a century old. In Elko New Market it will be the construction of a roundabout at the intersection of their Main Street (Scott County Road 2) and Natchez Avenue (Scott County Road 91).

Both are projects that have been in the planning stages for a number of years. I began covering the discussions for New Prague’s Main Street project in 2017. For Elko New Market it was later that same year. Sometimes it’s a little stunning that it’s taken three years of discussions, meetings, budgeting, and both communities seeking input from their residents and now the time for the actual work is just a few months away. It’s one of those times when people need to plan for a future event. I often find the best plans are ones where someone began thinking about the project as early as possible. They also made sure there was enough advance notice.

Some of us file a notice about an event away, but we don’t keep it in some place where we can see it, as a reminder that the event is coming up. Lately I’ve been finding keeping notes that I can glance at or, even handier, plugging it into my calendar on my phone has been even more helpful as a reminder. Being able to see a list of upcoming events help me know what I’ll be doing in the next few days, weeks or months down the road.

A lot of them are events that I’ll be covering for The Times. Others are get togethers with friends or an activity that I’ve been planning to attend over the last year.

I think most would agree it’s a little overwhelming, looking at a calendar and knowing how many days are already filled. It’s one of the things we need to do in our hectic world, plan ahead for the future or constantly be caught by surprise when an event arrives.