So 'twas on a Monday morning that the gas-man came to call

[sovay]

Because I hardly ever pay attention to it as a holiday, I always forget that Patriots' Day is so geographically bizarre, by which I mean that since it is tied to the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Menotomy it would make much more sense if like Evacuation Day it were functionally a Boston-area holiday or even celebrated only within Massachusetts and Maine and instead for some reason which may just be nationalism states as far-flung from the original thirteen colonies as South Dakota and Florida have since gotten in on the act. Around this time of year in the late eighteenth century, the colonial observance would have been Fast Day, which as a ritual of atonement must explain the stapled packet of pages popped through our mail slot this afternoon to notify us that for the next ten to twenty-four weeks we can expect construction every day on our street starting indefinitely soon. At least now I know what the serpentine pile of plastic pipe at the top of the street has been doing, taking up three parking spots. I am neither morally nor scientifically against the installation of a new gas main, especially since the cast-iron pipe being replaced is delicately described in the city materials as "vintage." I just want to sleep ever again in my life.

Comments

[movingfinger]

Chelan, Washington, still had a functional section of wooden water main around 2010! I assume they have gotten around to replacing it since then, but if it was cedar, it could last a while! I remember reading an interview with the guy responsible for the water department, who had spent his youth working on wooden-pipe systems in the area. Trees are something Washington could supply cheaply and in abundance, so no surprise that everyone used them! Back east and in the UK, I think elm was the preferred wood, but I'm sure they'd use pine or whatever if that's what they had.

That gas pipe could be around 125 years old, at least, right? Unless it was put down in the 1920s, which was probably the last big gas-laying period for a city as built up as yours.

[sovay]

Back east and in the UK, I think elm was the preferred wood, but I'm sure they'd use pine or whatever if that's what they had.

I had no idea. Cedar pipe!

That gas pipe could be around 125 years old, at least, right? Unless it was put down in the 1920s, which was probably the last big gas-laying period for a city as built up as yours.

I have been unable to find any statements on the exact or even approximate age of gas main about to be replaced on our street (the asphalt has been spray-painted like ritual magic, traffic cones are proliferating in former parking spots), but I am hoping to get a look at it when it comes out of the ground and perhaps be able to date it that way. If it's anything like the rest of the infrastructure around here, it can't imagine it's remotely recent. Somerville was a streetcar suburb in the nineteenth century. You can tell because it is very unfriendly to cars in the twenty-first.