Don’t travel the interstate unless it is necessary

Don Estep is Publisher Emeritus of The News Journal.

No matter what time of the day or night, or the day of the week, when you travel on Interstate 75 it is clogged with traffic.

Recently I have made trips to Georgia and traffic was extremely heavy. Each time I’ve driven to Lexington latlely it has been the same way.

In addition to heavy traffic, the condition of our highways worsens. Bascially one of the reasons behind this is cheap gas.

When gas prices floated down from their 2009 highs in the $4 a gallon range back toward a price nearing $2 a gallon more vehicles have been on the road and there has been less money from gasoline taxes to repair the roads.

In a recent poll the majority of people favor raising the gas tax in order to help solve the road problems.

Higher gas prices might cut down on the abundance of traffic too.

My advice is to not go unless you absolutely have to. It is frustrating.

•Perhaps you have noticed how young children value birthday parties. When our children were young they had birthday parties, but I was not aware as much as I am now with our grandchildren how excited they get when talking about their birthdays.

One of our grandchildren, Adelyn, will have a birthday this Friday. She turns nine years old. But it is her younger sister who is six years old that constantly talks about her birthday which will not be here for several months.

When I pick her up at school each day, because of her sister’s birthday, she tells me she can’t wait for her party and what she wants.

I was discussing with a friend some of the activities we had years ago for our children and he told me about having a skating party at Jerry’s Roller Rink. We did that too and

I understand that Norma Parks continues to host parties now.

That brings back a lot of memories. I skated there when I was a young boy. It is great that it is still available now.

Happy birthday Adelyn!