Saunders: Taking the roads less paved in Durham

Plastics.

That's the one-word career advice given to Dustin Hoffman's young character in the movie "The Graduate."

This may be too late for the thousands of Triangle college grads spilling forth from area campuses and going out into the world full of vim, vigor and optimism this weekend, but here are my career suggestions for those planning to stay in the area:

Dentistry.

Or front-end alignments.

Or proctology.

Say what? Why suggest those careers to someone whose parents just plunked down $200 large for a college education?

Here's why: Drive enough times down certain streets in Durham, specifically Duke or Gregson, and you will undoubtedly need the services of one or all of those professions. With proper advertising, you could recoup your education investment in a matter of months - especially if you majored in dentistry and minored in the other two.

See, if the fillings in your teeth don't come loose from hitting one of the gigantic raised manhole covers on the bumpy, under-construction streets, then your automobile's front end will need an adjustment. As for the other profession listed, well, just drive down those and other lunar-landscape streets a few times each day as I do. You'll most assuredly be reaching for the yellow pages and looking under "P" - for "psychiatrist" to address your resulting road rage or "proctologist" to address the inevitable raging 'rhoids.

Gregson and Duke streets are both maintained by the state's DOT, and the workers I hung out with around 3:30 one recent morning were working assiduously to finish paving at least one side of Gregson. But 150 miles of city streets are being resurfaced simultaneously, said Ed Venable, Durham's engineering manager. So you're going to hit a rough patch of road no matter where you drive.

"Everybody's paving season is the same," Venable said. "April through October, because you can't pave in cold weather."

An electronic sign on Duke Street that could serve as a monument to understatement warns motorists of "Uneven pavement next 1 mile" and urges them to "use extreme caution." Calling the next mile of bumpy road "uneven" is akin to saying "that Scotty McCreery kid can sing a little bit."

Venable said the city occasionally receives - and responds to - complaints. "Parker & Otis (restaurant and specialty foods store) was concerned with how the resurfacing being done on Peabody Street will affect their business with Duke's graduation this weekend. So we accommodated them" and put off the work for a few days.

He said the resurfacing projects are being paid for by a $20 million bond referendum Durham residents approved last year and will continue for two years. That means students with undeclared majors might want to consider a new career.

Even if they don't, the bumpy roads could serve as a metaphor and as a warning for what they'll face in life.