FREEWAY AT LAST, FREEWAY AT LAST, THANK GOD ALL MIGHTY I'M FREEWAY AT
LAST!
It's been about fifteen months since Reno, Nevada decided to make amends concerning the state not
celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day. They rescinded their holiday decision and upped the ante by
renaming U.S. Highway 395 to Martin Luther King Jr. Highway. And sad to say things are still not
going well between the black community and the State of Nevada.
It seems that no one knows the Highway possesses the late, great civil rights leader's namesake. The
reason, folks say is there are no signs advertising the tribute. At the moment there are only four signs,
two headed north and two south announcing that people are travelling along a road named after a man
who paved the way for racial equality instead of some boring old numbered highway paving the way
to Reno. Ranking members of the black community want more signs put up.
So far the state has no plans for more signs, which angers the fans of King, Jr.
I feel Nevada needs to put some more effort to appeasing them. Come on folks, this is NEVADA for
Chrissakes! You know that Vegas place? I think the state should front some extra dough and build a
really kick ass monument to Martin Luther King, Jr. using every electric, neon, plasma, and open arch
light they can find. Flood the street until you can cook rabbits that dart across the highway. I want it lit
so well that aliens could see it from Omicron Ceti Four.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great man with even greater visions. He deserves a tribute so big that one
can mistaken it for a simple little desert road. It should give new meaning to the term
SUPER-HIGHWAY. In fact I think even the pavement itself should be redone in bricks, gold ones, so
they will reflect even more light to the heavens, boldly declaring to the spirit of King, Jr. that we
remember you and dammit we're not going to let anyone forget you!
Now funding admittedly is going to be a problem. But I have an answer for this too. Let's take some
money from the inner city youth foundations of Nevada. Instead of bread and cots that cost the
taxpayers millions of dollars a year we can give them each a per diem to be spent at the local casinos.
Who knows, maybe they can parley that buck fifty into a mountainous cash cow that moos so loudly it
can drown out Barbara Streisand.
And as extra incentive, I am going to offer this week's Hy5 Award to the State of Nevada with the
stipulation that they make the former U.S. Highway 395 into the most easily recognized slab of
concrete since Lombard Street on a sunny afternoon in springtime.
For years, during King, Jr.'s strife of achieving racial equality he was walked upon by the evil white
community of the day. Only through his shimmering crusade to break down the barriers of ignorance
and prejudice has our willful cohabitation between the races occurred. Now we are not walking but
driving over his memory. This has to stop.
So join me friends in urging Nevada to take a good hard look at their clearly stubborn acceptance of a
truly great man. It's time they learn that even though they live in the desert that that desert is also part
of this blue green melting pot called Earth. They should learn that we are more than our skin that we
are all human beings who should pull together before it is too late. Too late for what you ask? Well,
too late for anything. There is no time like the present. Waste not want not. A good plan today is better
than a great plan tomorrow. He who hesitates is lost. And of course, Carpe Diem.