Doug Clark: Yet another invitation to go play on the freeway

On Tuesday the Washington state Department of Transportation invited me to go onto the closed-off section of Interstate 90 and become the first Spokesman-Review journalist to inspect the big freeway viaduct rut repair project.

This could mean:

1. WSDOT administrators have been sharing a crack pipe, or …

2. The WSDOT has a much bigger sense of humor than I ever dreamed, or …

3. WSDOT honchos hope I will become informed by my I-90 project visit and help them spread the word on the marvelous feats of freeway makeover going on.

Unfortunately, we must immediately rule out scenario No. 3. I am the last person on Earth to be analyzing anything that has to do with heavy equipment, rebar or trying to hit a nail with a hammer.

I am president of Men Who Can’t Build, which is evidenced by the following:

“I never made it through high school geometry.

“I once carved up a box spring mattress with a chain saw to make it fit into a bed frame.

“For years I thought “spatial relations” was what Luke Skywalker wanted to have with Princess Leia until he found out they were siblings.

But I’m a good sport. So when Al Gilson, the WSDOT spokesman, e-mailed me an offer to let me take a look, I responded quickly. “Dear Al,” I wrote. “As Jimmy Hoffa would say, ‘I’d be proud to be a part of your freeway project.’ “

So on Tuesday afternoon I met Robert Blegen, the assistant project engineer. He drove us onto the freeway work site and attempted to school me on the art of viaduct repair.

This, as everybody knows, is the second year in a row for downtown I-90 improvements.

The city’s core on-and-off ramps have again been closed, which has turned Third Avenue into a hilarious state of bumper-car chaos. Well, hilarious unless you’re one of the cursing drivers, that is.

But isn’t the misery of a few hundred bazillion motorists a small price to pay for a resurfaced freeway?

How should I know? As I said before, I’m in no position to judge road work, although there appears to be a lot of exciting activity going on.

Blegen is a great guy. He walked me through the process, which includes grinding the old rutted freeway down, removing pockets of lousy concrete with pressurized water and eventually putting on a new rut-free surface.

Blegen mentioned that he served in the U.S. Army as a combat demolitions expert. The guy worked with plastic explosives and detonators and all kinds of cool stuff.

Trouble is I couldn’t get him to tell me any exciting explosion stories.

All he wanted to talk about were expansion joints. Or how studded snow tires are responsible for the road grooves.

(There goes my flying saucer theory.)

In the end, I enjoyed my freeway frolic with the exception of one uncomfortable moment.

That happened when I made a wisecrack related to a device known in road worker lingo as a “Polish Broom.”

(COLUMN CLARIFICATION: This is not an assault on people of Polish heritage. I’m sure the name comes from the device being designed by, say, the famed Polish brothers of Poughkeepsie.)

Anyway, the Polish Broom (I think “Polish Lawn Mower” would be a funnier nickname) is a small, wheeled contraption that drags chains across the ground-down freeway surface.

A worker with a “good ear” can apparently determine when the chains encounter pockets of bad concrete by the tone being produced.

Yeah, it sounds insane. I mean, there I was, surrounded by all this horrendously expensive building equipment and I’m being told that the entire job boils down to some dude dragging a chain.

Anyway, good concrete makes a delightful ping. Bad concrete produces a hollow thud.

While Blegen was explaining this, a trim gentleman wearing a hard hat and safety vest sauntered over. So in my endless quest to be Spokane’s Monkey Boy, I turned and said something like:

“So, would you hear a dull thud if you smacked a chain on the project manager’s head?”

Blegen then introduced me to Dan McKernan.

Project manager.

It’s a wonder I made it off I-90 without taking a ride in a cement mixer.