Call Before You Dig

Jared graphic on road in Rochester, New York
Jared graphic on road in Rochester, New York

A long time ago I worked as a commercial artist for Hart Conway in the Triangle Building downtown on East Avenue. My boss smoked pot every morning and she was the most organized person I have ever met. We had some cash cow clients like RTS, the local bus service, and a bunch of car dealers who placed daily ad spreads in the paper and we had this organization that coordinated efforts to get local utilities approval before a backhoe digs in to a construction site and hits a water main or worse, an underground cable. The mascots for this campaign were two furry little animals that we had to draw in different poses for each ad, the two color pieces were always green and brown and the slogan was always the same, “Call Before You Dig.”

There are nine houses on our street and we pitch in on road repairs. One neighbor, though, can’t help but contribute more than others. Jared is our leader and a joy to work with. We’re preparing to put a drainage ditch in near our mailboxes because the mail lady (Jared thinks “she is as cute as a button”) drives in exactly the same spot every day and she has worn a ditch that fills up with water and freezes in the winter making getting the papers or mail a life threatening experience. He artfully outlined the drain (I’m not sure what the extension shown in the enlargement is all about) and then two of the utilities have signed off on it.

1 Comment

One Reply to “Call Before You Dig”

  1. the extension would be the direction the outflow from the catch basin will go in order to tie into the existing storm drain system, assuming you have one, i don’t remember you guys even having sidewalks. i have a big ditch in front of my house and my elderly neighbor paid to have part of her ditch filled in and they put a drain with a grate(catch basin) i think it cost her about $5000 to have 40 or 50 feet of ditch filled in.

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