The repair, we’re told, will take "two to four weeks," which translates as "four to six." I hope to Moses it’s no longer than that. The detour has traffic passing any given point on Cemetery and Allison Roads at the rate of one vehicle a minute. And a big percentage of them are semis, huge and heavy, smoky and loud.

I witness this non-stop, two-way parade just below my study window, which overlooks the intersection of Cemetery and Allison. (We often give directions to our house by saying we live "at the dead end of Cemetery Road." Not too funny, I know, but memorable enough to get guests here.)

What worries me most as I sit at my laptop is that some boy, a new driver fired up by hormones and too much horsepower, will come roaring up the hill from the Oaks Creek bridge and careen onto Cemetery Road, right into the path of an 18-wheeler. I’ve seen it almost happen twice.

Worse than the teens are the arrested adolescents _ 20-somethings, who blaze up that same hill like Cape Kennedy lift-offs, then swing tight left turns onto Cemetery, heedless of what might be lumbering towards them. The tighter the turn, dude, the more the tires squeal. Hot damn!

Though they can’t reduce the traffic, locals are doing their best to slow it to the regular speed limit of 30. Across the road from us, Don and Terri Houser have placed signs begging drivers to ease off and watch for children and pets. (Maybe I’ll ask them to add "geezers.") And I laughed out loud the other day at Aida Ostapeck pootling down Cemetery Road at a sedate 30 with a tail-back of five steaming drivers behind her. Aida, bless her, was grinning impishly.

This past weekend, traffic was compounded by Fly Creek Community Day, a great annual event that raises money for our local needs. Hundreds cruised our roads, stopping at the scores of yard sales. They had to compete with all the detouring trucks and cars, plus the complication of the closed highway; that forced lots of shoppers into u-turns and back-tracking. It all worked out, and the day was a rousing success. But it was at the cost of some real irritation and frayed patience.

On Monday I saw the heavy traffic flow from a different angle. Debbie Dickinson and Sarah Wilcox hosted another annual Fly Creek event, a pot-luck block party on Debbie’s side lawn. We all brought our lawn chairs and food to share. (From our house, a chicken salad made from a bona fide Fly Creek fowl, plus chives, celery, and herbs from Anne’s mammoth garden.) The event’s a fine one, especially for the older folks who, despite proximity, don’t get to see each other much.

We sat on the shady side lawn enjoying the food and one another’s company. But our party was right at the corner of Cemetery and Feed Store Roads, and sometimes we had to raise voices above the traffic noise. That’s grating in Fly Creek. To borrow the editorial "we" of my friend and fellow writer Cathe Ellsworth, "We were not amused." Though some of us on that lawn were cosmopolites from downtown Fly Creek, most were from the hamlet’s proletarian sector. The dividing line, at least for me and to my late friend Bill Shepard, is the trolley tracks_or where the tracks were before they were torn up for scrap during WWII. Those of us who live on "the other side of the tracks" have our own sense of independence. (Bill Shepard, I should add, was the unofficial mayor of our imaginary borough. He wasn’t elected; we made him so by acclamation.)

We South Fly Creekers are laid back, unpretentious. We’re plain folk, but we do like our peace and quiet. That’s what makes the detour situation so rankling for us. We don’t mind cars, campers, and monster trucks passing through; but not one per minute, from before dawn, into the night.

And, truth be told, we wonder why drivers have been detoured away from a collapsing culvert and onto a route that takes them along Allison Road. Allison itself is squeezed to one lane where it crosses the waters of Fly Creek. Yellow barriers and strobe lights warn of asphalt crumbling over still another culvert.

Gerry Allison tells me he sits in his house and watches drivers from east and west speed up as they approach that one-lane stretch. Each tries to force the other to defer and let him through first. So far, says Gerry, these games of "chicken" have only caused near-accidents. So far.

Traffic trouble in an urbanized Fly Creek. Who’d have thought? It’s the stuff of nightmares. But our bad dream will be over in two or four or six weeks _ certainly before the snow flies.

For the present, we South Fly Creekers will bear with it, waiting for a gap to scuttle to the mailbox; wincing, bracing for the impact, each time brakes screech at a corner. Maybe we won’t witness serious injury or worse. Hope not.

Read about Jim Atwell’s new book "From Fly Creek _ Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country" at JimAtwell.com.