It appears we are now on the short end of it, but the 15-month and counting highway construction job on the south end of Kingfisher has no doubt at some time or another tested the patience of almost every resident of Kingfisher County.

However, some of us have felt the discomfort more so than others, especially those who do business where the biggest mess is.

Randy and Heath Myers, owners of Jacket Express, are certainly at the top of the list for receiving more than their fair share of monetary and emotional suffering.

Mike, John and Jeff Johnson, along with their staff and customers at Johnsons of Kingfisher have also had their patience tested to the extreme limit.

Casey Jackson of Jacksons of Kingfisher and Bart Boeckman of Boeckman Ford tell us they haven’t had the same extreme problems with backed up traffic, due to their positioning further away from stoplights.

However, both commented that as soon as they wash their vehicles on their respective lots that they are dirty again. The Johnson family has the same opinion. It’s been that way for the past 15 months for all of them.

We all know there have been excessive rain days during late spring and early summer.

It’s been our experience that road construction projects rarely stay on schedule.

I would doubt one has ever been completed on the target date.

However, this particular project seems to tip the scales towards negative emotion more than any we’ve ever personally watched unfold.

Randy Myers tells us this project has cost his family’s Jacket Express an average of $2,500 of income per day since construction started, compared to same day income receipts of the previous year’s business.

It’s been about 15 months. You can do the math. When you add it up, it’s a painful total.

“It’s not our only business,” Randy tells us.

“But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been painful to watch and tough to endure,” he said.

Randy is a very good businessman. He says the business will survive it and move on. He takes as positive an attitude as he can.

“I wish they would have asked us our opinion as to how to best proceed on the deal. We would have certainly suggested that they do this part that stretches from the stoplight in front of McDonald’s, south to the entrance of Johnsons first, so that this stretch of businesses including Johnsons, Pizza Hut, Braum’s, ourselves, the clinic across the street and the tire store next to us would not have been affected for the entire 15 months,” he said.

“But they didn’t do that. So we’ve had to live with it. It is what it is. We’re happy for our loyal customers who have fought through the mess on a regular basis to keep coming our way. We’re thankful for that,” he added.

Jeff Johnson of Johnsons of Kingfisher said he is happy there hasn’t been any traffic fatalities involved throughout the process.

He said there have been several collisions and many more near-miss accidents involving both excessively slow and fast drivers recorded on their dealership surveillance cameras.

The Wal-Mart intersection stoplights create similar long lines for drivers.

Thirteenth Street, running north and south from the hospital to State Highway 33 has taken a pounding because so many of us, (including unlawful heavy truck usage at times) take that route to avoid the stoplights of Starlite Drive (Wal-Mart) and Will Rogers Drive (McDonald’s).

Our local police force maintains a strong presence on 13th Street to stop such forays, but it’s understandable that truck drivers trying to make decent time for their employers would take the risk of tickets to avoid the slowdown on U.S. Highway 81.

Not saying it’s right. Just saying we understand why they do it.

Jeff Johnson noted that even though it’s been tricky and sometimes dangerous to enter and exit the dealership, other than the extra expense of cleaning vehicles, the business numbers are not too far off the previous year’s totals.

We go to the Kingfisher Rotary meeting every Tuesday noon at Johnsons, and we experience first hand the dangerous driving conditions that exist in that short stretch of road.

Thirty minutes either side of 8 a.m., 12-noon and 5 p.m. seem to be the worst windows for traffic buildup involving the stoplights.

What did take us five minutes to travel (pre-construction) from downtown to Johnsons, now takes 20 minutes and longer at times.

The worst problem in that stretch seems to be when southbound drivers perpare to make a left turn.

Many times the biggest issue we’ve experienced has been folks driving to Braum’s who are in no particular hurry. And when you get a hesitant left-turner in that backed up two-lane mess of traffic, you can sometimes get a very long string of very impatient and frustrated oilfield truck drivers, mixed in with the normal everyday pickup and car drivers who are also in a hurry and on the clock.

There are times when that makes for a toxic and explosive mix.

Regardless, at some point (hopefully in the next six months), we will have our nice four-lane flow (with improvements) on the south side of town, and this last 15 months will become an inconvenient memory.

Until then, we’ll try to think happy thoughts every newspaper deadline Tuesday noon as we are headed to and from our Rotary club meetings.