Steve Pokin’s Answer Man column, now with the Springfield Daily Citizen, today answers Why is East Mimosa Street so confusing? Reader thinks it’s dangerous.
The reader’s question was:
I am writing about a long-standing traffic problem on East Mimosa Street. Over a brief stretch of the road as you drive east, it splits into two one-way roads. One of the roads dead ends and the other quickly converts back into two-way traffic. I and numerous neighbors have had near misses. Why is the road designed this way?
As I’m reading Pokin’s answer and look at the photographs and maps, I think it sounds familiar, especially when it mentions a mansion hidden from view right over there.
Holy cow, that’s on the route of the Evangel Temple’s 5K, the Royal Run and Rides. I’ve run it two or three times (medaling once because Joe and I were the only males of a certain age–I actually walked the route that year with my beautiful wife).
One wonders if Steve Pokin, a notorious runner, ever ran that race.
Which leads me to another question: Is it just me, or has the 5K fundraiser peaked? We haven’t run as many races as we used to back when the boys’ cross country program ran 5Ks instead of school meets, but we back in the day, we’d do several a year. Back then, you could find more than one a weekend going to the local timing company’s Web site and Ozark Mountain Ridge Runners. But now it looks like you can only find a couple a month, total. The Republic Pregnancy Resource Center used to have one annually–we attended organizational meetings one year and have sponsored it for several more–but it doesn’t appear that they’re having it this year. I can’t find the Royal Run and Rides on the calendar or on the Internet these days. Perhaps the 5K fundraiser was a fad whose time has passed.
